Talk:Exosome

This disambiguation page is within the scope of WikiProject Disambiguation, an attempt to structure and organize all disambiguation pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, you can edit the page attached to this talk page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project or contribute to the discussion.DisambiguationWikipedia:WikiProject DisambiguationTemplate:WikiProject DisambiguationDisambiguation

Molecular Biology: MCB

	This disambiguation page is within the scope of WikiProject Molecular Biology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Molecular Biology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Molecular BiologyWikipedia:WikiProject Molecular BiologyTemplate:WikiProject Molecular BiologyMolecular Biology
	This disambiguation page is supported by the Molecular and Cell Biology task force.

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