While studies exploring the mechanisms of carcinogenesis have mostly focused on exosomes as the main type of extracellular vesicles mediating TGF-β transport as cargo, TGF-β secretion in microvesicles/ectosomes have also been reported in other contexts such as in immunology and infectious diseases (Cestari et al., 2012; Sadallah et al., 2014, 2016). This evidence concerns the gene TGFB1 and infectious disease.