Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 12 pp 12324—12341
Ovarian aging increases small extracellular vesicle CD81+ release in human follicular fluid and influences miRNA profiles
Figure 1. Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) from Follicular Fluid (FF) of older and younger women. (A, B) Scanning Electron Micrographs of EVs isolated from the FF of older (A) and younger women (B) showing the presence of vesicles of spherical shape with a higher abundance in FFs from older women. (C) Diameter distribution of EVs from FFs of older and younger women. Gauss fit of the diameters measured on SEM microscopies shows an EV average diameter of 149 ± 50 nm for FFs from older women (red curve) and of 142 ± 20 nm for those of FFs from younger women (blue trend). (D) The TEM analysis shows that a small Gold (Au) nanoparticle functionalized with an antibody specific for the CD81 protein marker binds to the membrane of small EVs from the FF of younger women.