The ability of cells to transmit bioactive molecules to recipient cells and the extracellular environment is a fundamental requirement for both normal physiology and disease pathogenesis. It has traditionally been thought that soluble factors released from cells were responsible for this cellular signaling but recent research has revealed a fundamental role for microvesicles in this process. Mi...

Shiga toxin (Stx) is the main virulence factor of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, which are non-invasive strains that can lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), associated with renal failure and death. Although bacteremia does not occur, bacterial virulence factors gain access to the circulation and are thereafter presumed to cause target organ damage. Stx was previously shown to circulat...

Neutrophils deploy extracellular microvesicles that can arrest the growth of bacteria.

Microvesicles (MVs) are cell-derived vesicles which are of interest in a clinical setting, as they may be predictive of early signs of disease and/or of treatment progression. However, there are growing concerns about using conventional flow cytometry (cFMC) for the detection and quantification of microvesicles. These concerns range from error-sources in collection through to the physical limit...

s and focused on exosomes, microvesicles, and outer membrane vesicles from bacteria. This progress came together with a significant increase in cross-talk between and among different disciplines. One strong message coming out of this year’s meeting, M. Wauben said, is that microvesicles ‘‘offer a tremendous opportunity for clinical applications.’’ Next, J. Lötvall announced that the site for th...

Microvesicles (MVs) released from almost all cells are recognized as cell communication tools. MVs have been investigated in several inflammatory diseases but poorly biological fluids like bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) of smokers. The purpose this study was to investigate the presence and source BAL smokers with without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) compared nonsmoking controls. U...

Normal and tumor cells shed vesicles to the environment. Within the large family of extracellular vesicles, exosomes and microvesicles have attracted much attention in the recent years. Their interest ranges from mediators of cancer progression, inflammation, immune regulation and metastatic niche regulation, to non-invasive biomarkers of disease. In this respect, the procedures to purify and a...

The differentiated thyroid cancer is the most frequent endocrine cancer with unpredicted biological evolution. This study aimed to identify potential biomarkers from plasma microvesicles, for early detection, diagnosis and prognosis of cancer versus benign follicular adenoma thyroid lesions. Comparative proteomic analysis between tissue and plasma microvesicles identified eight proteins whose a...