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

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image by Sixian You and colleagues on the cover of PNAS, November 2019
• Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
• Image copyright held by original authors; image reproduction permitted by PNAS
• Published in PNAS, November 2019