Scalable Enrichment of Immunomodulatory Human Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cell Line-Derived Extracellular Vesicles

Extracellular Vesicles
/References

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells can secrete trophic factors, including extracellular vesicles (EVs), instructing the stromal leukemic niche. Here, we introduce a scalable workflow for purification of immunomodulatory AML-EVs to compare their phenotype and function to the parental AML cells and their secreted soluble factors. AML cell lines HL-60, KG-1, OCI-AML3, and MOLM-14 released EVs with a peak diameter of approximately 80 nm in serum-free particle-reduced medium. We enriched EVs >100x using tangential flow filtration (TFF) and separated AML-derived soluble factors and cells in parallel. EVs were characterized by electron microscopy, immunoblotting, and flow cytometry, confirming the double-membrane morphology, purity and identity. AML-EVs showed significant enrichment of immune response and leukemia-related pathways in tandem mass-tag proteomics and a significant dose-dependent inhibition of T cell proliferation, which was not observed with AML cells or their soluble factors. Furthermore, AML-EVs dose-dependently reduced NK cell lysis of third-party K-562 leukemia targets. This emphasizes the peculiar role of AML-EVs in leukemia immune escape and indicates novel EV-based targets for therapeutic interventions.

View full article

Recent Publications

Cigarette smoke (CS) represents one of the most relevant environmental risk factors for several chronic pathologies. Tissue damage caused by CS exposure is mediated, at least in part, by oxidative stress induced by its toxic and pro-oxidant components. Evidence demonstrates that extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by various cell types exposed to CS extract (CSE) are characterized by altered biochemical cargo and gained pathological properties. In the present study, we evaluated the content of oxidized proteins and phospholipid fatty acid profiles of EVs released by human bronchial epithelial BEAS-2B cells treated with CSE. This specific molecular characterization has hitherto not been performed. After confirmation that CSE reduces viability of BEAS-2B cells and elevates intracellular ROS levels, in a dose-dependent manner, we demonstrated that 24 h exposure at 1% CSE, a concentration that only slight modifies cell viability but increases ROS levels, was able to increase carbonylated protein levels in cells and released EVs. The release of oxidatively modified proteins via EVs might represent a mechanism used by cells to remove toxic proteins in order to avoid their intracellular overloading. Moreover, 1% CSE induced only few changes in the fatty acid asset in BEAS-2B cell membrane phospholipids, whereas several rearrangements were observed in EVs released by CSE-treated cells. The impact of changes in acyl chain composition of CSE-EVs accounted for the increased saturation levels of phospholipids, a membrane parameter that might influence EV stability, uptake and, at least in part, EV-mediated biological effects. The present in vitro study adds new information concerning the biochemical composition of CSE-related EVs, useful to predict their biological effects on target cells. Furthermore, the information regarding the presence of oxidized proteins and the specific membrane features of CSE-related EVs can be useful to define the utilization of circulating EVs as marker for diagnosing of CS-induced lung damage and/or CS-related diseases.

2023
No items found.
No items found.
No items found.