My name is Alja Zottel and I am postdoc researcher in prof. Komel lab at the Medical Centre for Molecular Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, UL MF. I am working in the field of exosomes in glioblastoma, especially exosomes as a delivery system. Glioblastoma, the most common primary brain tumor, is one of the deadliest cancers. It is characterized by highly immunosuppressive nature that significantly contributes to the malignancy of the disease. Therefore, I was excited to read more about the role of exosomes in glioblastoma immunosuppression in the manuscript by Azambuja et al., recently published in Neuro-Oncology Advances (https://doi.org/10.1093/noajnl/vdaa056).
The authors showed that exosomes carry several inhibitory proteins, such as FasL, TRAIL, CTLA-4, CD39 and CD73. In vitro, exosomes suppressed the activity of different immune cells and were able to polarize M1 macrophages towards immunosuppressive M2 phenotype by modulating NF-κB pathway. The scientists also examined the effect of exosomes in vivo and showed they decreased the number of M1 macrophages and increased the number of M2 macrophages in mice. The results overall illustrate that glioblastoma-derived exosomes stimulate immunosuppression of the tumor.
By Alja Zottel.
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