Investigating the role of extracellular vesicles in intercellular communication response to oxidative stress

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small membrane-bound bodies, which are released by a wide range of cells and are now appreciated to play some role in communication between cells. They have been suggested to play a role in communicating responses to different types of cellular stress such as radiation, chemotherapeutic drugs and heatshock, and may cause both damage and promote resistance to repeated stress conditions. This project will investigate whether EVs have a role in communicating responses to oxidative stress, a condition which is associated with various age-related diseases such as neurodegenerative disease, cancers and cardiovascular disease. EVs can carry a range of proteins, sugars and many different types of RNA, which may be specifically loaded and altered in response to stress conditions. This project will also investigate whether there are specific RNAs, carried by EVs, which are important in response to oxidative stress. It will then examine the mechanisms by which they act, looking at features such as their structure and the biochemical pathways on which they act within cells. This work will be carried out using both cell culture and the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, as this provides an excellent model system for understanding the basic biological processes underpinning cellular communication.
BBSRC Priority areas
This project is particularly relevant to the BBSRC strategic priority of "Healthy Ageing Across the Lifecourse" as oxidative stress is highly implicated in the ageing process and age-related disease. The project will also fulfil the aim for "Data driven Biology" as it makes use of bioinformatics approaches, including RNA sequencing and computational analysis of RNA structure, and novel imaging approaches.

WUB, ENWW