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. 2012 Jan;40(Database issue):D1241-4.
doi: 10.1093/nar/gkr828. Epub 2011 Oct 11.

ExoCarta 2012: database of exosomal proteins, RNA and lipids

Suresh Mathivanan  1 , Cassie J Fahner, Gavin E Reid, Richard J Simpson
Affiliations

ExoCarta 2012: database of exosomal proteins, RNA and lipids

Suresh Mathivanan et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 2012 Jan.

Abstract

Exosomes are membraneous nanovesicles of endocytic origin released by most cell types from diverse organisms; they play a critical role in cell-cell communication. ExoCarta (http://www.exocarta.org) is a manually curated database of exosomal proteins, RNA and lipids. The database catalogs information from both published and unpublished exosomal studies. The mode of exosomal purification and characterization, the biophysical and molecular properties are listed in the database aiding biomedical scientists in assessing the quality of the exosomal preparation and the corresponding data obtained. Currently, ExoCarta (Version 3.1) contains information on 11,261 protein entries, 2375 mRNA entries and 764 miRNA entries that were obtained from 134 exosomal studies. In addition to the data update, as a new feature, lipids identified in exosomes are added to ExoCarta. We believe that this free web-based community resource will aid researchers in identifying molecular signatures (proteins/RNA/lipids) that are specific to certain tissue/cell type derived exosomes and trigger new exosomal studies.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
A snapshot of the protein molecule page of TSG101 in ExoCarta is displayed. Users can access molecule centric information from the protein molecule page in ExoCarta. The gene ontology annotations, protein–protein interaction network, graphical display of the network, experimental description pertaining to the studies that identified TSG101, mass spectrometry-based peptide identifications along with the MS/MS spectra and autoradiographs for western blotting are provided wherever possible as supporting information.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Distribution of exosomes isolation procedures in the studies catalogued in ExoCarta. A histogram of the distribution of exosome isolation procedures in exosomal studies is displayed. As shown, 84% of the studies employed differential centrifugation, 56% used rate zonal centrifugation and 9% employed immunoaffinity-based methods. It has to be noted that many of the studies used a combination of these procedures. For example, filtration (26%), cannot be used alone to isolate exosomes, was used in conjunction with other isolation procedures.
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