Now in our 13th year of bringing you beautiful imagery from biomedical science every day

Search the archive of over 4000 images

No Labels

Extracellular vesicles – packaged secretions from cells – can be identified by microscopy and are characteristic in breast cancer

10 January 2020

No Labels

A growing area of interest in cancer research is the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs), tiny cytoplasm packets surrounded by cell membrane, which cells secrete into the extracellular environment. Several studies implicate them in tumour growth and spread, or metastasis, so methods have been developed to tag and track these microscopic structures. Yet labelling vesicles to observe them has disadvantages, including limitations to viewing in three-dimensional tissues and unforeseen effects of adding tags. Avoiding these issues, scientists recently managed to identify EVs in live cells and tissues without any labelling, by combining several microscopy techniques at once, picking up on the EVs’ contents and internal structures. With this method, they found that EVs rich in NAD(P)H, a molecule essential for many chemical reactions, were especially abundant in mammary tumour tissue in rats (pictured, with EVs shown as tiny blue dots) and in humans, suggesting potential applications as a diagnostic tool.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Search The Archive

Submit An Image

Follow on Tumblr

Follow on Instagram

What is BPoD?

BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

Read More

BPoD is also available in Catalan at www.bpod.cat with translations by the University of Valencia.