Rikkert L G, Beekman P, Caro J, Coumans F A W, Enciso-Martinez A, Jenster G, Le Gac S, Lee W, van Leeuwen T G, Loozen G B, Nanou A, Nieuwland R, Offerhaus H L, Otto C, Pegtel D M, Piontek M C, van der Pol E, de Rond L, Roos W H, Schasfoort R B M, Wauben M H M, Zuilhof H, Terstappen L W M M
Department of Medical Cell Biophysics, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands.
Laboratory of Experimental Clinical Chemistry, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Front Oncol. 2020 Jun 4;10:608. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2020.00608. eCollection 2020.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have great potential as biomarkers since their composition and concentration in biofluids are disease state dependent and their cargo can contain disease-related information. Large tumor-derived EVs (tdEVs, >1 μm) in blood from cancer patients are associated with poor outcome, and changes in their number can be used to monitor therapy effectiveness. Whereas, small tumor-derived EVs (<1 μm) are likely to outnumber their larger counterparts, thereby offering better statistical significance, identification and quantification of small tdEVs are more challenging. In the blood of cancer patients, a subpopulation of EVs originate from tumor cells, but these EVs are outnumbered by non-EV particles and EVs from other origin. In the Dutch NWO Perspectief Cancer-ID program, we developed and evaluated detection and characterization techniques to distinguish EVs from non-EV particles and other EVs. Despite low signal amplitudes, we identified characteristics of these small tdEVs that may enable the enumeration of small tdEVs and extract relevant information. The insights obtained from Cancer-ID can help to explore the full potential of tdEVs in the clinic.
细胞外囊泡（EVs）作为生物标志物具有巨大潜力，因为它们在生物流体中的组成和浓度取决于疾病状态，并且其内含物可包含与疾病相关的信息。癌症患者血液中源自肿瘤的大型细胞外囊泡（tdEVs，>1μm）与不良预后相关，其数量变化可用于监测治疗效果。然而，源自肿瘤的小型细胞外囊泡（<1μm）数量可能超过大型囊泡，因此具有更好的统计学意义，但对小型tdEVs的鉴定和定量更具挑战性。在癌症患者的血液中，一部分细胞外囊泡来源于肿瘤细胞，但这些细胞外囊泡的数量少于非细胞外囊泡颗粒和其他来源的细胞外囊泡。在荷兰NWO Perspectief Cancer-ID项目中，我们开发并评估了检测和表征技术，以区分细胞外囊泡与非细胞外囊泡颗粒及其他细胞外囊泡。尽管信号幅度较低，但我们确定了这些小型tdEVs的特征，这可能有助于对小型tdEVs进行计数并提取相关信息。从Cancer-ID项目中获得的见解有助于探索tdEVs在临床中的全部潜力。
