Summary. Background: Plasma and other body fluids contain membranous extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are considered to derive from activated or apoptotic cells. EVs participate in physiological and pathological processes and have potential applications in diagnostics or therapeutics. Knowledge on EVs is, however, limited, mainly due to their sub-micrometer size and to intrinsic limitations in methods applied for their characterization. Objectives: Our aim was to provide a comprehensive description of EVs from plasma of healthy subjects. Methods: Cryo-transmission electron microscopy combined with receptor-specific gold labeling was used to reveal the morphology, size and phenotype of EVs. An original approach based on sedimentation on electron microscopy grids was developed for enumerating EVs. A correlation was performed between conventional flow cytometry and electron microscopy results. Results: We show that platelet-free plasma samples contain spherical EVs, 30 nm to 1 lm in diameter, tubular EVs, 1-5 lm long, and membrane fragments, 1-8 lm large. We show that only a minority of EVs expose the procoagulant lipid phosphatidylserine, in contrast to the classical theory of EV formation. In addition, the concentrations of the main EV sub-populations are determined after sedimentation on EM grids. Finally, we show that conventional flow cytometry, the main method of EV characterization, detects only about 1% of them. Conclusion: This study brings novel insights on EVs from normal plasma and provides a reference for further studies of EVs in disease situations.

Plasma and other body fluids contain cell-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs), which participate in physiopathological processes and have potential biomedical applications. In order to isolate, concentrate and purify EVs, high-speed centrifugation is often used. We show here, using electron microscopy, receptor-specific gold labelling and flow cytometry, that high-speed centrifugation induces the formation of EV aggregates composed of a mixture of EVs of various phenotypes and morphologies. The presence of aggregates made of EVs of different phenotypes may lead to erroneous interpretation concerning the existence of EVs harbouring surface antigens from different cell origins.

Cells release membrane vesicles in their surrounding medium either constitutively or in response to activating signals. Two main types of extracellular vesicles (EVs) are commonly distinguished based on their mechanism of formation, membrane composition and size. According to the current model, EVs shed from the plasma membrane, often called microvesicles, expose phosphatidylserine (PS) and range in size from 100 nm to 1 µm, while EVs originating from endosomal multi-vesicular bodies, called exosomes, contain tetraspanin proteins, including CD63, and range in size from 50 to 100 nm. Heijnen et al. [1] have shown that activated platelets release EVs corresponding to these two types of vesicles, using negative staining electron microscopy (EM) and immuno-gold labeling. Here, we apply cryo-EM and immuno-gold labeling to provide a quantitative analysis of EVs released by platelets activated by thrombin, TRAP and CRP-XL, as well as EVs from serum. We show that EVs activated by these three agonists present a similar size distribution, the majority of them forming a broad peak extending from 50 nm to 1 µm, about 50% of them ranging from 50 to 400 nm. We show also that 60% of the EVs from TRAP or CRP-XL activation expose CD41, a majority of them exposing also PS. To explain the presence of large EVs CD41-negative or PS-negative, several alternative mechanisms of EV formation are proposed. We find also that the majority of EVs in activated platelet samples expose CD63, and distinguish two populations of CD63-positive EVs, namely large EVs with low labeling density and small EVs with high labeling density.

BackgroundPlasma contains cell-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs), which participate in physiopathological processes and have potential applications as disease biomarker. However, the enumeration of EVs faces major problems, due to their sub-micrometer size and to intrinsic limitations in methods of characterization, mainly flow cytometry (FCM).ObjectivesOur objective is to enumerate EVs in plasma, by taking as the prototype the population of phosphatidylserine (PS)-exposing EVs, which constitute one of the major EV populations and are responsible for thrombotic disorders.MethodsThe concentration of PS-exposing EVs in platelet-free plasma (PFP) of healthy subjects was measured by FCM using either light scattering or fluorescence as the trigger and fluorescent Annexin-5 (Anx5) as the specific label. In addition, PS-exposing EVs were enumerated by electron microscopy (EM) after labeling with Anx5 gold nanoparticles and sedimentation on EM grids.ResultsWe show that about 50× more Anx5-positive EVs are detected by FCM when detection is triggered on fluorescence as compared with light scattering. By fluorescence triggering, concentrations of 22 000–30 000 Anx5-positive EVs per μL PFP were determined, using two different flow cytometers. The limit of detection of the fluorescence triggering method was estimated at about 1000–2500 Anx5 molecules. Results from EM suggest that EVs down to 100–150 nm diameter are detected by fluorescence triggering.ConclusionThis study presents a simple method for enumerating EVs. We believe that this method is applicable in a general context and will improve our understanding of the roles of EVs in pathophysiological situations, which will open avenues for the development of EV-based diagnosis assays.

Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant biological entities on Earth. Siphophages, accounting for ~60% of known phages, bear a long, flexible tail that allows host recognition and safe delivery of the DNA from the capsid to the cytoplasm of the infected cell. Independently from their host (Gram positive or Gram negative) and the nature of their receptor at its surface (polysaccharide or protein), the core tail architecture of all caudophages and of phagederived systems share the same structural organisation and are thought to be homologous. Here, we review the recent advances in the structure, function and assembly of the core tail architecture of siphophages.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-derived vesicles that are present in blood and other body fluids. EVs raise major interest for their diverse physiopathological roles and their potential biomedical applications. However, the characterization and quantification of EVs constitute major challenges, mainly due to their small size and the lack of methods adapted for their study. Electron microscopy has made significant contributions to the EV field since their initial discovery. Here, we describe the use of two transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques for imaging and quantifying EVs. Cryo-TEM combined with receptor-specific gold labeling is applied to reveal the morphology, size, and phenotype of EVs, while their enumeration is achieved after high-speed sedimentation on EM grids.

The vast majority of bacteriophages (phages) - bacterial viruses - present a tail that allows host recognition, cell wall perforation and safe channelling of the viral DNA from the capsid to the cytoplasm of the infected bacterium. The majority of tailed phages bears a long flexible tail (Siphoviridae) at the distal end of which a tip complex, often called baseplate, harbours one or more Receptor Binding Proteins (RBPs). Interaction between the RBPs and the host surface triggers cell wall perforation and DNA ejection, but little is known on these mechanisms for Siphoviridae. Here, we present the structure of siphophage T5 tip at high resolution, determined by electron cryo-microscopy, allowing to trace most of its constituting proteins, including 35 C-terminal residues of the Tape Measure Protein. We also present the structure of T5 tip after interaction with its E. coli receptor FhuA reconstituted into nanodisc. It brings out the dramatic conformational changes underwent by T5 tip upon infection, i.e. bending of the central fibre on the side, opening of the tail tube and its anchoring to the membrane, and formation of a transmembrane channel. These new structures shed light on the mechanisms of host recognition and activation of the viral entry for Siphoviridae.

The biological and functional significance of selected Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction 14 (CASP14) targets are described by the authors of the structures. The authors highlight the most relevant features of the target proteins and discuss how well these features were reproduced in the respective submitted predictions. The overall ability to predict three-dimensional structures of proteins has improved remarkably in CASP14, and many difficult targets were modeled with impressive accuracy. For the first time in the history of CASP, the experimentalists not only highlighted that computational models can accurately reproduce the most critical structural features observed in their targets, but also envisaged that models could serve as a guidance for further studies of biologicallyrelevant properties of proteins.