What is an exosome?

Exosomes are vesicles that can get out through the membranes that surround the body’s cells. They are between 30 and 100 billionths of a millimeters in size. They act as messengers or bottle mail between different cells in the body. A healthy glandular cell is polarized, which means that the signaling substances it must release to send messages to a specific recipient cell only go out in one direction, namely to the gland duct. When a cell develops cancer, polarization ceases, and exosomes leak into the blood. All exosomes, regardless of where in the body they come from, carry traces of their parent cell. If a person has cancer, there are therefore traces of this in the exosomes that the tumor secretes.