Talk:Exosome

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Molecular Biology: MCB

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Two kinds of exosome?

Not knowing anything of this, I looked around the web for 'exosome'. It looks to me like there are two conflicting uses of the term in biology.

One is apparently a small vesicle occurring outside of cells. This seems to be what the current text of this article is talking about. Some papers re this meaning: Exosome: from internal vesicle of the multivesicular body to intercellular signaling device and Identification, proteomic profiling, and origin of ram epididymal fluid exosome-like vesicles.

On the otherhand, there seems to be a exosome that is a complex of enzyme molecules which process short RNAs, and may be located in the nucleolus and elsewhere in the cell. Papers about these: The human exosome: an autoantigenic complex of exoribonucleases in myositis and scleroderma and The exosome, a molecular machine for controlled RNA degradation in both nucleus and cytoplasm.

If this is as it appears, the article should make that clear. Perhaps there should be two articles; if so, each should guide readers to the other. -R. S. Shaw 05:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed: Conflicting terminology

The term exosome is indeed used for two different entities in molecular biology: One is a membrane vesicle generated by endocytosis, endosome sorting into perinuclear multivesicular bodies (MVB) and exocytosis of MVBs. The other one is a macromolecular complex that degradedes mRNAs. Adenozin