Abstract
The recent study from the Pogge von Strandmann group published in Cellular and Molecular Immunology, by Alashkar Alhamwe et al., combined for the first time the Cre-LoxP recombination system with single-cell sequencing. The group monitored the tumor-derived extracellular vesicle (EV) uptake and the EV functions in the recipient non-malignant cells in a pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma mouse model. Recombination events and EV uptake, together with resulting gene expression changes in macrophages, neutrophils, and mast cells, were detected by single-cell sequencing technology of the tumor tissue. This new approach is highly specific, as it can identify single EV recipient cells without interfering with the EV biogenesis or the phenotype.