Exosome reporter mice reveal the involvement of exosomes in mediating neuron to astroglia communication in the CNS

Yuqin Men, Julia Yelick, Shijie Jin, Yang Tian, Ming Sum R. Chiang, Haruki Higashimori, Eoin Brown, Rachel Jarvis and Yongjie Yang ()
Additional contact information
Yuqin Men: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Julia Yelick: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Shijie Jin: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Yang Tian: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Ming Sum R. Chiang: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Haruki Higashimori: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Eoin Brown: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Rachel Jarvis: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience
Yongjie Yang: Tufts University School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract Astroglia play active and diverse roles in modulating neuronal/synaptic functions in the CNS. How these astroglial functions are regulated, especially by neuronal signals, remains largely unknown. Exosomes, a major type of extracellular vesicles (EVs) that originate from endosomal intraluminal vesicles (ILVs), have emerged as a new intercellular communication process. By generating cell-type-specific ILVs/exosome reporter (CD63-GFPf/f) mice and immuno-EM/confocal image analysis, we found that neuronal CD63-GFP+ ILVs are primarily localized in soma and dendrites, but not in axonal terminals in vitro and in vivo. Secreted neuronal exosomes contain a subset of microRNAs (miRs) that is distinct from the miR profile of neurons. These miRs, especially the neuron-specific miR-124-3p, are potentially internalized into astrocytes. MiR-124-3p further up-regulates the predominant glutamate transporter GLT1 by suppressing GLT1-inhibiting miRs. Our findings suggest a previously undescribed neuronal exosomal miR-mediated genetic regulation of astrocyte functions, potentially opening a new frontier in understanding CNS intercellular communication.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11534-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11534-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11534-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().