Quantitative proteomics of extracellular vesicles released from human primary macrophages upon beta/glucan stimulation

Fungal infections (mycoses) are common diseases of varying severity that cause problems especially to immunologically compromised people. During stimulatory conditions of infection and colonization, besides intensive intracellular response, human cells actively communicate on the intercellular level by secreting proteins with several mechanisms. The main immunostimulatory components of fungi are beta-glucans, fungal cell-wall components. Here, we have used high-throughput quantitative proteomics combined with bioinformatics to characterize and quantify vesicle-mediated protein release from beta-glucan-stimulated human primary macrophages. We show that β-glucan stimulation induces vesicle-mediated protein secretion. Proteomic study identified 540 distinct proteins from the vesicles including several receptors which have not been identified from vesicles before. Bioinformatics analysis strongly suggests a significant role for these proteins in transfer of biological information. Our current data provides an important resource on the protein composition of extracellular vesicles released from human macrophages upon fungal infection.