Nanotubes have been observed for the first time in a living organism. This discovery, made by an Chiara Zurzolo, INCEPTION partner is the culmination of twenty years of research on these intriguing intercellular connections.
"I've believed in tunneling nanotubes since the beginning!" says Chiara Zurzolo, Head of the Membrane Traffic and Pathogenesis Unit at the Institut Pasteur and member of the INCEPTION consortium. She has been researching nanotubes for the past twenty years. Originally trained in medicine to gain a solid foundation for cellular biology, she joined the Institut Pasteur in 2003. At that time, she witnessed the early discoveries surrounding nanotubes, when a team from Germany and Switzerland first observed, in vitro, that cells could communicate through narrow channels—tiny tunnels known as tunneling nanotubes (TNTs). Cells use these structures to transfer various substances, including hormones, enzymes, organelles, and vesicles.
Initially, the discovery was met with skepticism, as researchers debated whether these structures played a significant role in cellular communication. But for Chiara Zurzolo, TNTs represented a fascinating and promising field of study, and she dedicated her career to investigating them. Twenty years later, in 2024, she and her team have made a breakthrough: for the first time, they have observed TNTs in a living organism, confirming their existence in vivo.
Read the full article on the Institut Pasteur website
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