Professor Sachie Hiratsuka of the Institute for Biomedical Sciences/Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Shinshu University School of Medicine has newly discovered that extracellular messenger RNA (mRNA) of a particular sequence binds to receptors on the surface of natural killer (NK) cells and becomes internalized into the nucleus. This novel mRNA uptake leads to increased NK-cell migration activity and interferon-γ production. Moreover, NK cells that took up the extracellular mRNA were found to inhibit the spread of cancer in animal studies.

The findings were published online in Nature Communications of Springer Nature journal.

See below for details.
Title: Extracellular mRNA transported to the nucleus exerts translation-independent function
Authors: Takeshi Tomita, Masayoshi Kato, Taishi Mishima, Yuta Matsunaga, Hideki Sanjo, Ken-ichi Ito, Kentaro Minagawa, Toshimitsu Matsui, Hiroyuki Oikawa, Satoshi Takahashi, Toshifumi Takao, Noriki Iwai, Takashi Mino, Osamu Takeuchi, Yoshiro Maru, Sachie Hiratsuka
Journal: Nature Communications
Published on June 16, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23969-1