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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Nov 15.
Published in final edited form as: Semin Cancer Biol. 2019 Feb 12;54:131–137. doi: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2019.02.004

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

Role of Ras pathway proteins in exo-some biogenesis, cargo selection and release. Summary diagram showing different components of the Ras pathway and their roles in exosome biology. Exosomes are small vesicular structures that have a lipid bilayer. The bilayer is embedded with several macro and micromolecules including MHC class II, tetraspanins, immunoglobulins, receptors. These bilayered vesicles carry several types of cargoes such as mRNA, DNA, microRNAs etc. Ras, MAPK, CDC42, GTPases and their effectors such as p21 activated kinases have also been detected in exosomes. EGFR and EGFR-p are recognized for their role in exosome biogenesis and are also detected in intact exosomes. Ras and its downstream pathway proteins such as Rho, Rac and CDC42 GTPases, and their effectors are also known to promote exosome biogenesis, mediate cargo selection and induce exo-some release. Small GTPases have also been documented in stabilizing the phospholipases present in the exosome bilayer (shaded triangle). ERKs have been reported to play a role in facilitating exosome uptake.