UMMS Affiliation
Department of Neurobiology
Date
12-29-2012
Document Type
Article
Medical Subject Headings
Cytoplasmic Vesicles
Disciplines
Neuroscience and Neurobiology
Abstract
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membraneous vesicles released by a variety of cells into their microenvironment. Recent studies have elucidated the role of EVs in intercellular communication, pathogenesis, drug, vaccine and gene-vector delivery, and as possible reservoirs of biomarkers. These findings have generated immense interest, along with an exponential increase in molecular data pertaining to EVs. Here, we describe Vesiclepedia, a manually curated compendium of molecular data (lipid, RNA, and protein) identified in different classes of EVs from more than 300 independent studies published over the past several years. Even though databases are indispensable resources for the scientific community, recent studies have shown that more than 50% of the databases are not regularly updated. In addition, more than 20% of the database links are inactive. To prevent such database and link decay, we have initiated a continuous community annotation project with the active involvement of EV researchers. The EV research community can set a gold standard in data sharing with Vesiclepedia, which could evolve as a primary resource for the field.
Comments
Citation: PLoS Biol. 2012 Dec;10(12):e1001450. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001450. Link to article on publisher's site
Copyright 2012 Kalra et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Full author list omitted for brevity. For the full list of authors, see article.