A next generation sequencing based approach to identify extracellular vesicle mediated mRNA transfers between cells. Homo sapiens

Purpose: Exosomes and other extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as an important mechanism of cell-to-cell communication. In this work, we present a novel next generation of sequencing (NGS) based approach to identify EV mediated mRNA exchanges between co-cultured adipocyte and macrophage cells. Methods:We performed molecular and genomic profiling and jointly considered data from RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and genotyping to track the ‘sequence varying mRNAs’ transferred between cells. Results: We identified 8 mRNAs being transferred from macrophages to adipocytes and 21 mRNAs being transferred in the opposite direction. These mRNAs represented biological functions including extracellular matrix, cell adhesion, glycoprotein, and signal peptides. Conclusions: Our study sheds new light on EV mediated RNA communications between adipocyte and macrophage cells, which may play a significant role in developing insulin resistance in diabetic patients. This work establishes a new method that is widely applicable to examining genetic material exchanges in many other cellular systems. Overall design: Our main experiment was performed on an in-vitro co-culture cellular system, in which two types of human cells (adipocytes and macrophages) were cultured in the same dish but separated by a porous membrane to prevent them from being mixed together (see Methods). The porous membrane allows small particles (size less than 0.4 µm) to pass through, making EV mediated mRNA exchanges between the two cell lines possible. ADMO_qc_GRCH38.txt contains genotypes of genotype of Adipocytes and Macrohpages