ArticleThe EMBO journal2012
Microvesicles released from microglia stimulate synaptic activity via enhanced sphingolipid metabolism.
Article in The EMBO journal, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 202 papers.
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Who cites it
202 citing papers in PubMed, 321 citations in OpenAlex.
- Markers and Enrichment Strategies for Brain-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: Current Evidence, Limitations and Future Directions.Neuromolecular medicine · 2026Review
- Exosomes in Amyloid Propagation-Roles in Neurodegeneration.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Review
- Extracellular Vesicles in Alzheimer's Disease: Dual Roles in Pathogenesis, Promising Avenues for Diagnosis and Therapy.Pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Roles of Microglia in Synaptogenesis, Synaptic Pruning, and Synaptic Plasticity in Physiological Conditions and Central Nervous System Disorders.Current neuropharmacology · 2026Review
- Mechanistic insights into the synaptic damage-repair and regeneration processes in neurodegenerative Alzheimer's disease: phytochemicals as neuroprotective agents.Frontiers in synaptic neuroscience · 2026Review
- P2X7 receptor-dependent microglia-astrocyte coupling in Alzheimer's disease: from eATP sensing to synaptic and proteostatic failure.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Review
- Cannabinoids and Extracellular Vesicles as Potential Biomarkers and Therapeutic Targets in Neuropsychiatric Disorders: A Hypothesis-Driven Review.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Extracellular vesicles for targeted drug delivery: advances in surface modification strategies and therapeutic applications.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Review
- Microglia-to-neuron signaling linksProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Loss of PLA2G4E compromises synaptic structure and cognitive outcomes in mice.Life science alliance · 2025Article
- Lipidomic and proteomic insights from extracellular vesicles in the postmortem dorsolateral prefrontal cortex reveal substance use disorder-induced brain changes.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Microglia-to-neuron signaling increases lipid droplet metabolism, enhancing neuronal network activity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Heat shock proteins function as signaling molecules to mediate neuron-glia communication in C. elegans during aging.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- The Multifaceted Role of Extracellular Vesicles in Alzheimer's Disease.Journal of neurochemistry · 2025Review
- The Multifaceted Role of P2X7R in Microglia and Astrocytes.Neurochemical research · 2025Review
- Neuroimmune Circuits in Allergic Diseases.Annual review of immunology · 2025Review
- The Role of Complexity Theory in Understanding Brain's Neuron-Glia Interactions.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Review
- Isolation, identification, and challenges of extracellular vesicles: emerging players in clinical applications.Apoptosis : an international journal on programmed cell death · 2025Review
- Increased levels of extracellular matrix proteins associated with extracellular vesicles from brains of aged mice.Aging cell · 2025Article
- Extracellular vesicles: biological mechanisms and emerging therapeutic opportunities in neurodegenerative diseases.Translational neurodegeneration · 2024Review
142 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Microvesicles (MVs) released into the brain microenvironment are emerging as a novel way of cell-to-cell communication. We have recently shown that microglia, the immune cells of the brain, shed MVs upon activation but their possible role in microglia-to-neuron communication has never been explored. To investigate whether MVs affect neurotransmission, we analysed spontaneous release of glutamate in neurons exposed to MVs and found a dose-dependent increase in miniature excitatory postsynaptic current (mEPSC) frequency without changes in mEPSC amplitude. Paired-pulse recording analysis of evoked neurotransmission showed that MVs mainly act at the presynaptic site, by increasing release probability. In line with the enhancement of excitatory transmission in vitro, injection of MVs into the rat visual cortex caused an acute increase in the amplitude of field potentials evoked by visual stimuli. Stimulation of synaptic activity occurred via enhanced sphingolipid metabolism. Indeed, MVs promoted ceramide and sphingosine production in neurons, while the increase of excitatory transmission induced by MVs was prevented by pharmacological or genetic inhibition of sphingosine synthesis. These data identify microglia-derived MVs as a new mechanism by which microglia influence synaptic activity and highlight the involvement of neuronal sphingosine in this microglia-to-neuron signalling pathway.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.