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Updated: Dec 7, 2025

Purification of High Yield Extracellular Vesicle Preparations Away from Virus
Published on: September 12, 2019
Intercellular Transmission of Naked Viruses through Extracellular Vesicles: Focus on Polyomaviruses
Francois Helle1, Lynda Handala1,2, Marine Bentz1
1UR UPJV 4294, Agents Infectieux, Résistance et chimiothérapie (AGIR), Centre Universitaire de Recherche en Santé, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, 80000 Amiens, France.
Abstract:
Extracellular vesicles have recently emerged as a novel mode of viral transmission exploited by naked viruses to exit host cells through a nonlytic pathway. Extracellular vesicles can allow multiple viral particles to collectively traffic in and out of cells, thus enhancing the viral fitness and diversifying the transmission routes while evading the immune system. This has been shown for several RNA viruses that belong to the Picornaviridae, Hepeviridae, Reoviridae, and Caliciviridae families; however, recent studies also demonstrated that the BK and JC viruses, two DNA viruses that belong to the Polyomaviridae family, use a similar strategy. In this review, we provide an update on recent advances in understanding the mechanisms used by naked viruses to hijack extracellular vesicles, and we discuss the implications for the biology of polyomaviruses.
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