Eavesdropping on cells; understanding new mechanisms of cell-cell communication in normal and diseased states

I will discuss our recent findings from the two main projects in the lab, both focusing on understanding cell-cell communication. The first I will discuss is our finding that adipocytes cause morphological changes in breast cancer cells that resemble the features which promote formation of secondary tumours when grown in a 3-dimensional co-culture model. I will discuss our current efforts at identifying the factor that promotes this change. Secondly, I will discuss our finding that engagement of the cell surface receptor CD24 induces release of extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are nano-sized lipid-membrane encapsulated particles derived from cells that can alter the cellular microenvironment. I will discuss our findings regarding EVs released from B lymphocytes and discuss the potential significance of our analysis of the EV cargo, including RNA and protein.