TY - JOUR
T1 - Answers to naysayers regarding microbial extracellular vesicles
AU - Coelho, Carolina
AU - Casadevall, Arturo
N1 - Funding Information:
A.C. was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards AI052733-10, and HL059842-16A1. We thank Julie M. Wolf, Raghav Vij and Daniel Q. Smith for their critical reading of the manuscript. We thank the EV community on Twitter for their feedback and helpful discussions.
Funding Information:
A.C. was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards AI052733-10,
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s).
PY - 2019/7/18
Y1 - 2019/7/18
N2 - It is now over 30 years since the discovery of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in Gram-negative bacteria. However, for cell-walled microbes such as fungi, mycobacteria and Gram-positive bacteria it was thought that EV release would be impossible, since such structures were not believed to cross the thick cell wall. This notion was disproven 10 years ago with the discovery of EVs in fungi, mycobacteria, and gram-positive bacteria. Today, EVs have been described in practically every species tested, ranging from Fungi through Bacteria and Archaea, suggesting that EVs are a feature of every living cell. However, there continues to be skepticism in some quarters regarding EV release and their biological significance. In this review, we list doubts that have been verbalized to us and provide answers to counter them. In our opinion, there is no doubt as to existence and physiological function of EVs and we take this opportunity to highlight the most pressing topics in our understanding of the biological processes underlying these structures.
AB - It is now over 30 years since the discovery of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in Gram-negative bacteria. However, for cell-walled microbes such as fungi, mycobacteria and Gram-positive bacteria it was thought that EV release would be impossible, since such structures were not believed to cross the thick cell wall. This notion was disproven 10 years ago with the discovery of EVs in fungi, mycobacteria, and gram-positive bacteria. Today, EVs have been described in practically every species tested, ranging from Fungi through Bacteria and Archaea, suggesting that EVs are a feature of every living cell. However, there continues to be skepticism in some quarters regarding EV release and their biological significance. In this review, we list doubts that have been verbalized to us and provide answers to counter them. In our opinion, there is no doubt as to existence and physiological function of EVs and we take this opportunity to highlight the most pressing topics in our understanding of the biological processes underlying these structures.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071710886&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85071710886&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1042/BST20180252
DO - 10.1042/BST20180252
M3 - Review article
C2 - 31320501
AN - SCOPUS:85071710886
SN - 0300-5127
VL - 47
SP - 1005
EP - 1012
JO - Biochemical Society transactions
JF - Biochemical Society transactions
IS - 4
ER -