Chapter 20 - Circulating cell-free mitochondria and membrane vesicles

Abstract

This chapter discusses the cell-free mitochondria circulating in blood; mitochondria and other compounds circulating within cell-free membrane vesicles, and cell-free circulating mitochondrial DNA in health and disease. Tryptamine uptakes by intestinal vesicles and thus can be translocated within intestinal extracellular vesicles. Furthermore, tryptamine and other bacterial metabolites can circulate in the bodily fluids within the extracellular bacterial membrane vesicles. Both viral and bacterial infections can induce tryptamine production in mammalian host. Bacterial extracellular vesicles from the human gut microbiome can enter the circulatory system to disseminate to distant organs and tissues. The possible crossing of the blood-brain barrier by bacterial extracellular vesicles and virally infected vesicles explain why the bacterial and viral materials can be found in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease patients and in non-Alzheimer’s brain.