A Panorama of Extracellular Vesicle Applications: From Biomarker Detection to Therapeutics

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by all cell types are involved in the cell-to-cell transfer of regulatory factors that influence cell and tissue phenotypes in normal and diseased tissues. EVs are thus a rich source of biomarker targets for assays that analyze blood and urinary EVs for disease diagnosis. Sensitive biomarker detection in EVs derived from specific cell populations is a key major hurdle when analyzing complex biological samples, but innovative approaches surveyed in this Perspective can streamline EV isolation and enhance the sensitivity of EV detection procedures required for clinical application of EV-based diagnostics and therapeutics, including nanotechnology and microfluidics, to achieve EV characterizations. Finally, this Perspective also outlines opportunities and challenges remaining for clinical translation of EV-based assays.

Keywords: analysis; detection; diagnostic; disease biomarkers; extracellular vesicles; nanocarriers; targeted delivery; techniques; therapeutics.

Figure 1

Schematic depicting various EV detection technologies employing fluorescence (upper-left), surface plasmon resonance (SPR) (upper-left), surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) (lower-left), electrochemical and microfluidic approaches (upper-right), and the nanostructures used for EV detection methodologies (lower-right). Figure created with Biorender.com.

Figure 2

Schematic of current single EV analysis approaches using label-based and label-free detection methods. Figure created with Biorender.com.

Figure 3

Overview of EV roles in disease and therapeutic applications intended to attenuate cancer-related processes or to decrease tissue injury and enhance tissue repair in neurodegenerative, infectious, diabetes, cardiovascular, and kidney disease. Figure created with Biorender.com.