Mycobacterium tuberculosis releases membrane vesicles packed with molecules that can modulate the immune response. Because environmental conditions often influence the production and content of bacterial vesicles, this study examined M. tuberculosis microvesicles released under iron limitation, a common condition faced by pathogens inside the host. The findings indicate that M. tuberculosis inc...

OBJECTIVE To study re-association pattern of human placental eluate immunoglobulins with acid treated isologous and third party trophoblast derived placental microvesicles. DESIGN Laboratory based experimentation. SETTING Biological Sciences Department and Discipline for Reproductive Medicine University of Newcastle, Australia and the Department of Biochemistry, University of Nairobi, Kenya...

Inspired by microvesicle-mediated intercellular communication, we propose a hybrid vector for magnetic drug delivery. It consists of macrophage-derived microvesicles engineered to enclose different therapeutic agents together with iron oxide nanoparticles. Here, we investigated in vitro how magnetic nanoparticles may influence the vector effectiveness in terms of drug uptake and targeting. Huma...

Intact RNA from exosomes/microvesicles (collectively referred to as microvesicles) has sparked much interest as potential biomarkers for the non-invasive analysis of disease. Here we use the Illumina Genome Analyzer to determine the comprehensive array of nucleic acid reads present in urinary microvesicles. Extraneous nucleic acids were digested using RNase and DNase treatment and the microvesi...

In the environment, Gram-negative bacteria are capable of producing large amounts of endotoxin-containing microvesicles - spherical structures measuring 30-50 nm in diameter, emerging by fragmentation of the outer membrane of the bacterial cell wall. Microvesicles are suspected of inducing inflammatory lung diseases, but possibly also of stimulating anti-tumour defence mechanisms. The present s...

We attempted to highlight progress in microparticle research and bring some clarity to a rapidly changing field that is still defining three major categories of extracellular vesicles: exosomes (smaller), microvesicles, and microparticles (larger). We thank Burger et al1 for pointing out the difficulties in describing what is present and what is active in a given system. The majority of microve...

By a series of centrifugation and ultracentrifugation, we could isolate microvesicles with approximately 100 nm in diameter from bovine milk. We also found that approximately 1700 and 1000 ng of total RNA, in which small RNAs were major components, was contained inside the microvesicles isolated from 6 ml of colostrum and mature milk, respectively, despite high RNase activity in the milk. Polya...

Microvesicles, small membrane vesicles released from cells, have beneficial and/or deleterious effects in sepsis. We previously reported that non-muscle myosin light chain kinase (nmMLCK) deletion protects mice against endotoxic shock by reducing inflammation. Here, we have evaluated the consequences of nmMLCK deletion on microvesicle phenotypes and their effects on mouse aortic endothelial cel...

A woman's risk for metabolic syndrome (MS) increases at menopause, with an associated increase in risk for cardiovascular disease. We hypothesized that early menopause-related changes in platelet activity and concentrations of microvesicles derived from activated blood and vascular cells provide a mechanistic link to the early atherothrombotic process. Thus, platelet functions and cellular orig...