Collagen VII: A Link Between the Skin and Bone Marrow Via Extracellular Vesicles
Jeffrey D. McBride, MD, PhD, Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery, University of Miami, Miami, Florida
Disclosures: Dr. McBride has been a consultant with Aegle Therapeutics.
Jeffrey D. McBride, MD, PhD
Extracellular vesicles—exosomes, microvesicles, and apoptotic bodies—are ubiquitous in human tissues, circulation, and body fluids. Of these vesicles, exosomes are of growing interest among investigators across multiple fields, including dermatology. The characteristics of exosomes, their associated cargo (nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids), and downstream functions are vastly different, depending on the cell of origin. Specifically, we have discovered that these extracellular vesicles from the bone marrow–derived mesenchymal stem cells stimulate production of basement membrane components by cells that genetically lacked the ability to do so before (ie, collagen VII from fibroblasts derived from patients with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa). In other words, our work shows that the bone marrow can replenish collagen VII by directly delivering protein but also by transferring messenger RNA, coding for collagen VII, to the epidermolysis bullosa fibroblasts, allowing them to make collagen VII for the first time. Extracellular vesicles, including exosomes, have immediate potential for serving as therapeutics in dermatology over the next decade.
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