AREAS COVERED: The differential bacterial composition identified from BEVs isolated from biofluids between patients and healthy controls may be valuable for detecting diseases. Therefore, BEVs may serve as novel diagnostic markers. Literature search on PubMed and Google Scholar databases was conducted. In this special report, we outline the commonly used approach for investigating BEVs in biofluids, the 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing of V3-V4 hypervariable regions, and the recent studies exploring the potential of BEVs as biomarkers for various diseases.
EXPERT OPINION: The emerging field of BEVs offers new possibilities for the diagnosis of various types of diseases, although there remain issues that need to be resolved in this research area to implement BEVs in clinical applications. Hence, it is important for future studies to take these challenges into consideration when investigating the diagnostic value of BEVs.
METHODS: In this work, we present a general overview of INPST activities and showcase the specific use of Twitter as a powerful networking tool that was used to host a one-week "2021 INPST Twitter Networking Event" (spanning from 31st May 2021 to 6th June 2021) based on the application of the Twitter hashtag #INPST.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The use of this hashtag during the networking event period was analyzed with Symplur Signals (https://www.symplur.com/), revealing a total of 6,036 tweets, shared by 686 users, which generated a total of 65,004,773 impressions (views of the respective tweets). This networking event's achieved high visibility and participation rate showcases a convincing example of how this social media platform can be used as a highly effective tool to host virtual Twitter-based international biomedical research events.