Low level electricity increases the secretion of extracellular vesicles from cultured cells

Exosomes, a type of extracellular vesicles, can be collected from the conditioned medium of cultured cells, and are expected to be used in disease therapy and drug delivery systems. However, since the yield of exosomes from conditioned medium is generally low, investigations to develop new methods to increase exosome secretion and to elucidate the secretion mechanism have been performed. Our previous studies demonstrated that activation of intracellular signaling including Rho GTPase and subsequent endocytosis of extraneous molecules in cells could be induced by low level electricity (0.3–0.5 mA/cm2). Since exosomes are produced in the process of endocytosis and secreted by exocytosis via certain signaling pathways, we hypothesized that low level electric treatment (ET) would increase exosome secretion from cultured cells via intracellular signaling activation. In the present study, the influence of ET (0.34 mA/cm2) on extracellular vesicle (EV) secretion from cultured cells was examined by using murine melanoma and murine fibroblast cells. The results showed that the number of EV particles collected by ultracentrifugation was remarkably increased by ET in both cell lines without cellular toxicity or changes in the particle distribution. Also, protein amounts of the collected EVs were significantly increased in both cells by ET without alteration of expression of representative exosome marker proteins. Moreover, in both cells, the ratio of particle numbers to protein amount was not significantly changed by ET. Rho GTPase inhibition significantly suppressed ET-mediated increase of EV secretion in murine melanoma, indicating that Rho GTPase activation could be involved in ET-mediated EV secretion in the cell. Additionally, there were almost no differences in uptake of each EV into each donor cell regardless of whether the cells had been exposed to ET for EV collection. Taken together, these results suggest that ET could increase EV secretion from both cancer and normal cells without apparent changes in EV quality.