Extracellular vesicles to the rescue in lung cancer therapy.
This video may contain potentially sensitive content on the topic of cancer.
This video is intended to inform not to diagnose or suggest treatments.
Please seek the help of a medical
professional for further information regarding the contents of this video.
This video will be divided into the following sections.
Introduction
To Cancer The Warehouse Analogy What are extracellular vesicles exosomes in cancer
therapy and Conclusion You may already be well aware of cancer.
Cancer involves the abnormal division
of cells that leads to the creation of tumors.
These tumors can crowd out healthy cells.
They can draw nutrients from healthy
tissues and they can interfere with bodily functions.
One common treatment to cancer is
chemotherapy, which has a reputation for being fairly harsh.
Chemotherapy is the delivery of drugs to the site of the tumor.
It often involves damaging nearby cells.
To get a little bit of background
information, let's first go over the immune response
that occurs when cancer is detected in the body.
Imagine that your body is a warehouse
that consists of various departments or organ systems.
Your lungs are one Department,
your heart is another, your brain is another Department and so on.
The immune system can be imagined as
the surveillance cameras that look out for thieves to sneak into the warehouse.
These thieves are analogous to foreign
invaders in the body, such as antigens or abnormalities like cancer.
An important cell in the immune system are the dendritic cells,
which are the security guards that inform other cells of some sort of disturbance.
More specifically than tritic cells present antigens to natural killer cells.
This is analogous to security guards who present the thieves to the manager
of the warehouse so that the manager remembers their identity.
For next time,
the natural killer cells are the immune cells that will respond to cancer.
This happens when the cancerous antigen binds to the receptor on the natural
killer cell, causing the release of toxic chemicals such as prophorin and granzymes,
which will cause the death of cancerous cells.
Now imagine that there was a way to fight
cancer without such an invasive procedure as chemotherapy.
Guess what? Researchers are currently
looking into the use of vesicles in cancer therapy.
Now you might be wondering what exactly are vesicles?
Imagine yourself blowing bubbles.
These bubbles can be thought of as
vesicles that are released by all cells into body foods.
Vesicles are membranebound organelles
that bought out of the cell and contain a phospholipid bilayer.
This type of membrane has two layers, each made up of numerous phospholipids.
The head of the phospholipid is polar and is hydrophilic,
meaning it has an affinity for water while the tail of the phospholipid is nonpolar
and is hydrophobic, meaning it repels water.
The phospholipid bilayer is considered
antipathy as it has a polar and a nonpolar component.
The general purpose of these vesicles is
to target specific cell types, induce a signaling cascade of some sort or
deliver cellular components such as protein and mRNA into the recipient cell.
This is done to modify the physiological state of the receiving cell.
Extracellular vesicles differ in their size, function, content, release, origin,
and pathways, depending on the type of cell that produces them.
Extracellular vesicles can be divided
into three main subjects, micro, vesicles, endosomes, and apoptotic bodies.
Similar to how the bubbles vary in size and color.
These three vesicles vary in size and the proteins they carry.
However, only one in particular is
the focus of today's video, which is exosomes.
Recently, researchers have discovered
that the immune cells mentioned at the beginning of this video can produce
exosomes, which can enhance your immune response against cancer,
thus preventing patients from undergoing aggressive procedures such as chemo.
Radiotherapy, and or surgery.
Which are often associated with many disadvantages.
So today we will be examining the role of exosomes and lung cancer.
More specifically,
we will be looking at non small cell lung cancer, so this form of cancer is less
aggressive in comparison to other lung cancers out there.
The tumor starts in the epiphyle lining of the lungs and then it usually spreads
to nearby tissues, which is also known as metastasis.
Now let's examine the process that takes place in creating these exosomes,
so first, there's the formation of an early endosome within the dental excel.
After that, interluminal vessel forms
inside the late endosome, leading to the production of a multi vesticular body.
The interluminal vesicles are released into the extracellular space as exosomes.
Now, these exosomes can travel through blood or any other bodily fluid to
enhance as well as elicit an immune response against cancer.
Now, let's examine the immune response against cancer.
So once these exercises have been created,
they have to be taken up by natural killer cells.
And there are three proposed mechanisms
for this, the first one being ligand receptor interaction,
the second one being fusion, and the third one being fibrocytosis.
So in ligand receptor interaction, the ligand in the membrane of the exosomes
will bind to the receptor in the membrane of the natural killer cells.
And lastly, in cyclic,
the exosomes is engulfed or eaten by the target or the natural killer cells.
Based on whichever mechanism occurs, the end result is essentially the same.
The tumor associated antigens
from the exosomes are dumped into the natural killer cells.
Which will then target and kill the cancer cells in the lungs.
In conclusion, it can be summarized
that all our cells produce extracellular vesicles.
These vesicles are membrane oreganoles
that vary in shape, size, function, and the type of proteins that they carry.
But essentially they are powerful tool
when it comes to communication between two cells.
However, in today's video,
we examine the role of a particular type of vesticle known as exosomes and how they
are utilized in combating small cell lung cancer, which is usually treated
by surgery or chemo radiotherapy, which are often associated with many
disadvantages, such as high, massiveness and long recovery periods.
But luckily because of this new research.
Patients might not have to undergo these two aggressive procedures is.