Journal of Extracellular Biology (Oct 2023)

Guidelines for the purification and characterization of extracellular vesicles of parasites

  • Carmen Fernandez‐Becerra,
  • Patrícia Xander,
  • Daniel Alfandari,
  • George Dong,
  • Iris Aparici‐Herraiz,
  • Irit Rosenhek‐Goldian,
  • Mehrdad Shokouhy,
  • Melisa Gualdron‐Lopez,
  • Nicholy Lozano,
  • Nuria Cortes‐Serra,
  • Paula Abou Karam,
  • Paula Meneghetti,
  • Rafael Pedro Madeira,
  • Ziv Porat,
  • Rodrigo Pedro Soares,
  • Adriana Oliveira Costa,
  • Sima Rafati,
  • Anabela‐Cordeiro da Silva,
  • Nuno Santarém,
  • Christopher Fernandez‐Prada,
  • Marcel I. Ramirez,
  • Dolores Bernal,
  • Antonio Marcilla,
  • Vera Lucia Pereira‐Chioccola,
  • Lysangela Ronalte Alves,
  • Hernando Del Portillo,
  • Neta Regev‐Rudzki,
  • Igor Correia deAlmeida,
  • Sergio Schenkman,
  • Martin Olivier,
  • Ana Claudia Torrecilhas

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/jex2.117
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 10
pp. n/a – n/a

Abstract

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Abstract Parasites are responsible for the most neglected tropical diseases, affecting over a billion people worldwide (WHO, 2015) and accounting for billions of cases a year and responsible for several millions of deaths. Research on extracellular vesicles (EVs) has increased in recent years and demonstrated that EVs shed by pathogenic parasites interact with host cells playing an important role in the parasite's survival, such as facilitation of infection, immunomodulation, parasite adaptation to the host environment and the transfer of drug resistance factors. Thus, EVs released by parasites mediate parasite‐parasite and parasite‐host intercellular communication. In addition, they are being explored as biomarkers of asymptomatic infections and disease prognosis after drug treatment. However, most current protocols used for the isolation, size determination, quantification and characterization of molecular cargo of EVs lack greater rigor, standardization, and adequate quality controls to certify the enrichment or purity of the ensuing bioproducts. We are now initiating major guidelines based on the evolution of collective knowledge in recent years. The main points covered in this position paper are methods for the isolation and molecular characterization of EVs obtained from parasite‐infected cell cultures, experimental animals, and patients. The guideline also includes a discussion of suggested protocols and functional assays in host cells

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