Tiny Bubbles
Vesicles that cells spit out are implicated in cancer and AIDS
By John Travis
When Gustavo Rosania looked through his microscope last year, the University of Michigan cancer researcher was perplexed. Tumor cells that had been treated with chemotherapy agents had bubblelike objects at their edges. These microscopic vesicles were apparently being shed by the cells. What’s more, the bubbles contained some of the chemotherapy drugs. Rosania and his colleagues quickly scanned the research literature and discovered that other scientists had seen similar vesicles, dubbed exosomes, coming off many kinds of cells, including cancer cells.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2003/11/3546.jpg?resize=148%2C150&ssl=1)
“Although I was trained as a cell biologist, I had not heard of exosomes or vesicle shedding before,” recalls Rosania.