Anti-GPI monoclonal antibody, clone 2C8E8

The present study aimed to identify and compare the microbial signatures between periodontally healthy and periodontitis subjects using 454 sequences of 16S rRNA genes. Subgingival plaque samples were collected from ten periodontally healthy subjects and ten matched chronic periodontitis patients. Bacterial DNA was extracted and next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA genes was performed. The microbial composition differed between healthy subjects and periodontitis patients at all phylogenetic levels. Particularly, 16 species, including Lautropia mirabilis and Neisseria subflava predominated in healthy subjects, whereas nine species, including Porphyromonas gingivalis and Filifactor alocis predominated in periodontitis. UniFrac, a principal coordinate and network analysis, confirmed distinct community profiles in healthy subjects and periodontitis patients. Using predicted function profiling, pathways involved in phenylpropanoid, GPI-anchor biosynthesis, and metabolism of alanine, arginine, aspartate, butanoate, cyanoamino acid, fatty acid, glutamate, methane, proline, and vitamin B6 were significantly over-represented in periodontitis patients. These results highlight the oral microbiota alterations in microbial composition in periodontitis and suggest the genes and metabolic pathways associated with health and periodontitis. Our findings help to further elucidate microbial composition and interactions in health and periodontitis.

Exosomes are natural nanovesicles excreted by many cells for intercellular communication and for transfer of materials including proteins, nucleic acids and even synthetic therapeutic agents. Surface modification of exosomes imparts additional functionality to the exosomes to enable site specific drug delivery and in vivo imaging and tracking and is an emerging area in drug delivery research. The present review focuses upon these modifications on the exosomal surface, the chemistry involved and their impact on targeted drug delivery for the treatment of brain, breast, lung, liver, colon tumors and, heart diseases and for understanding their in vivo fate including their uptake mechanisms, pharmacokinetics and biodistribution. The specific exosomal membrane proteins such as tetraspanins (CD63, CD81, CD9), lactadherin (LA), lysosome associated membrane protein-2b (Lamp-2b) and, glycosyl-phosphatidyl-inositol (GPI) involved in functionalization of exosome surface have also been discussed along with different strategies of surface modification like genetic engineering, covalent modification (click chemistry and metabolic engineering of parent cells of exosomes) and non-covalent modification (multivalent electrostatic interactions, ligand-receptor interaction, hydrophobic interaction, aptamer based modification and modification by anchoring CP05 peptide) along with optical (fluorescent and bioluminescent) and radioactive isotope labelling techniques of exosomes for imaging purpose.