Day 3 of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) 2017 annual meeting in Toronto, Canada, opened with three simultaneous early-morning Meet the Experts sessions—one on “In Vivo Imaging-Based Analysis of EV-Biological Activity,” one on “Vesicular and Non-Vesicular Pathways of Extracellular RNA Release,” and the third on "EV-Mediated Parasite-Host Interactions.” These sessions are designed for experts to give brief opening talks and then to field questions from the audience. The third session was chaired by Dr. Ana Claudia Torrecilhas of the Federal University of Sao Paolo, and the featured expert speakers were Dr. Rodrigo Soares, of the Instituto Oswaldi Cruz in Brazil, who focused on the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite, and Dr. Martin Olivier, of McGill University in Canada, who spoke on Leishmania. Dr. Soares noted how T. cruzi EVs are agonists of the TLR2 receptor and stimulate the production of NO, TNF-, IL-6, and MAP kinases, eliciting a generally proinflammatory response that is conducive to the survival and invasiveness of the intracellular parasite. Dr. Olivier described how the Leismania parasite insect vector, the sand fly, transmits Leishmania EVs with its bite and that these EVs exacerbate Leishmania pathology. In addition, some of the Leishmania EVs contain a virus called LRV1. This virus can infect other Leishmania and exacerbate their virulence. The virus is not infective without the EV coat.Login Or Register To Read Full Story