RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:New PR aroundVMMy last nerdy science comment (for now).
The two things I want to know going forward that isn't in this paper is
1) Whether they can really show some effect on exosome production as they might be hinting in the discussion.
2) What happens to SORT1 expression at the surface of the cell. One way the PDC might mimic SORT1 silencing would be to cause the SORT1 on the surface to get internalized and then stop it returning to the surface thus slowly depleting it. The PDCs might do that by shutting down the microtubule 'railways' that the endosome system runs on. In effect not just hijacking the endosome sytem to get inside the cell but also crippling the system. The exosomes run on the same railway and the signals that induce changes to the outside of the cell to cause migration and VM also have to run from the inside of the cell out. Seems like a neat way to bring these observations (and hints) together in a single mechanism (caveat : I don't really know what I'm talking about, just nerdy speculation)
If I was let lose in their labs I'd be hunting down ultracentrifuges to separate out exosomes on PDC-treated and untreated cells and perfecting my IHC skills to see if I could see changes in SORT1 expression levels at the cell surface following PDC treatment.