Lipid-Targeting Peptide Probes for Extracellular Vesicles.

Extracellular vesicles released from cells are under intense investigation for their roles in cell-cell communication and cancer progression. However, individual vesicles have been difficult to probe as their small size renders them invisible by conventional light microscopy. However, as a consequence of their small size these vesicles possess highly curved lipid membranes that offer an unconventional target for curvature-sensing probes. In this article, we present a strategy for using peptide-based biosensors to detect highly curved membranes and the negatively charged membrane lipid phosphatidylserine, we delineate several assays used to validate curvature- and lipid-targeting mechanisms, and we explore potential applications in probing extracellular vesicles released from sources such as apoptotic cells, cancer cells, or activated platelets. J. Cell. Physiol. 231: 2327-2332, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.