Communication between cancer cell subtypes by exosomes contributes to nasopharyngeal carcinoma metastasis and poor prognosis
Intratumor heterogeneity is universal in cancers, numerous investigations revealed that different subtypes of cancer cells support each other to become more malignant. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a malignant cancer with high metastatic potential, also show significant heterogeneity among cancer cells. In this study, we revealed that different subtypes of cancer cells with differed metastatic potential could transmit the capacity via exosomes. High metastatic cells promote the migration, invasion and metastatic capacity of the lower ones via exosome-transmitted miR-30a-5p. And the plasma level of exosomal miR-30a-5p is a good indicator of the prognosis of NPC patients. Moreover, we revealed that exosomal miR-30a-5p promoted cell metastatic capacity in vitro and in vivo; the underlying mechanism is that miR-30a-5p may targeted DSG2 and modulate Wnt signaling. Of note, the expression level of DSG2 is reversely correlated with the level of plasma exosomal miR-30a-5p, which could also predict the prognosis of NPC patients. Overall, we revealed that high metastatic NPC cells could promote metastatic potential of the low metastatic cells and uncovered the role of exosome-transmitted miR-30a-5p, which could be a good prognosis marker and is convenient to assess by liquid biopsy for the NPC patients.