Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms that lack a nucleus and can be found in various environments. They can be beneficial, harmless, or disease-causing in humans, animals, and plants. The ability to detect and analyse them is crucial for effective disease diagnosis and selecting the right treatment. Identifying the sources of bacterial infections helps in choosing the appropriate antibiotic treatment. Proper prescription and use of antibiotics prevent bacteria from developing resistance to certain types of antibiotic treatment.
A recent paper submitted under the MOBILES project in Chemical & Biomedical Imaging focuses on the visualisation of bacterial extracellular vesicles (EVs). EVs are membrane-surrounded vesicles actively released by bacteria, much like missiles. These "missiles" carry bioactive molecules and deliver them to recipient cells. They transport diverse biomolecules, influencing interactions between host cells and microbes and impacting disease progression. EVs are thus important for how infections spread and how the immune system responds.
Across all domains of life, bacteria secrete these vesicles, a phenomenon discovered only decades ago thanks to improvements in the visualisation techniques available to scientists. Imaging bacterial EVs still presents several technical challenges due to their small size (20 to 400 nm in diameter), structural complexity, and dynamic nature. Nowadays researchers have been able to purify and isolate them, but very few protocols allow the tracking of bacterial extracellular vesicles biogenesis and their fusion with host cells. Advanced techniques, such as super-resolution microscopy and specific labelling of bacterial extracellular vesicles, have provided deeper insights into their biogenesis, the molecules they transport, and the mechanisms by which they support bacterial survival and pathogenicity.
Detecting and analysing bacterial extracellular vesicles is crucial for understanding microbial behaviour, developing diagnostic biomarkers, and designing novel therapeutics such as vaccines and antimicrobial treatment strategies.
Read more in the article published in: Chemical & Biomedical Imaging: Visualization of the Biogenesis, Dynamics, and Host Interactions of Bacterial Extracellular Vesicles
Authors: Sandrine Truchet, Jeanne Malet-Villemagne, Gilles Tessier, Jasmina Vidic
Chemical and Biomedical Imaging
