Bystander autophagy mediated by radiation-induced exosomal MIR-7-5p in non-targeted human bronchial epithelial cells

Man Song, Yu Wang, Zeng Fu Shang, Xiao Dan Liu, Da Fei Xie, Qi Wang, Hua Guan, Ping Kun Zhou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

70 Scopus citations

Abstract

Radiation-induced bystander effect (RIBE) describes a set of biological effects in non-targeted cells that receive bystander signals from the irradiated cells. RIBE brings potential hazards to adjacent normal tissues in radiotherapy, and imparts a higher risk than previously thought. Excessive release of some substances from irradiated cells into extracellular microenvironment has a deleterious effect. For example, cytokines and reactive oxygen species have been confirmed to be involved in RIBE process via extracellular medium or gap junctions. However, RIBE-mediating signals and intercellular communication pathways are incompletely characterized. Here, we first identified a set of differentially expressed miRNAs in the exosomes collected from 2 Gy irradiated human bronchial epithelial BEP2D cells, from which miR-7-5p was found to induce autophagy in recipient cells. This exosome-mediated autophagy was significantly attenuated by miR-7-5p inhibitor. Moreover, our data demonstrated that autophagy induced by exosomal miR-7-5p was associated with EGFR/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. Together, our results support the involvement of secretive exosomes in propagation of RIBE signals to bystander cells. The exosomes-containing miR-7-5p is a crucial mediator of bystander autophagy.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number30165
JournalScientific reports
Volume6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 15 2016
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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