Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117599, Singapore; Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117600, Singapore.
Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Administration, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai 20203, China.
Semin Cancer Biol. 2021 Sep;74:105-120. doi: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2021.05.011. Epub 2021 May 11.
Cancer has risen up to be a major cause of mortality worldwide over the past decades. Despite advancements in cancer screening and diagnostics, a significant number of cancers are still diagnosed at a late stage with poor prognosis. Hence, the discovery of reliable and accurate methods to diagnose cancer early would be of great help in reducing cancer mortality. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are phospholipid vesicles found in many biofluids and are released by almost all types of cells. In recent years, using EVs as cancer biomarkers has garnered attention as a novel technique of cancer diagnosis. Compared with traditional tissue biopsy, there are many advantages that this novel diagnostic tool presents - it is less invasive, detects early-stage asymptomatic cancers, and allows for monitoring of tumour progression. As such, EV biomarkers have great potential in improving the diagnostic accuracy of cancers and guiding subsequent therapeutic decisions. Efficient isolation and accurate characterization of EVs are essential for reliable outcomes of clinical application. However, these are complicated by the size and biomolecular diversity of EVs. In this review, we present an analysis and evaluation of the current techniques of EV isolation and characterization, as well as discuss the potential EV biomarkers for specific types of cancer. Taken together, EV biomarkers have a lot of potential as a novel method in cancer diagnostics and diagnosis. However, more work is still needed to streamline the purification, characterization and biomarker identification process to ensure optimal outcomes for patients.
在过去几十年中，癌症已成为全球主要的死亡原因。尽管癌症筛查和诊断技术有所进步，但仍有相当数量的癌症在晚期被诊断出，预后较差。因此，发现可靠和准确的早期诊断癌症的方法将有助于降低癌症死亡率。细胞外囊泡 (EVs) 是在许多生物体液中发现的磷脂囊泡，几乎所有类型的细胞都会释放。近年来，将 EV 用作癌症生物标志物作为一种新的癌症诊断技术引起了关注。与传统的组织活检相比，这种新型诊断工具具有许多优势——它的侵入性较小，可检测早期无症状癌症，并可监测肿瘤进展。因此，EV 标志物在提高癌症诊断的准确性和指导后续治疗决策方面具有巨大潜力。高效的 EV 分离和准确的特征分析对于临床应用的可靠结果至关重要。然而，EV 的大小和生物分子多样性使这些过程变得复杂。在这篇综述中，我们对 EV 分离和特征分析的当前技术进行了分析和评估，并讨论了特定类型癌症的潜在 EV 生物标志物。总之，EV 标志物作为癌症诊断和诊断的一种新方法具有很大的潜力。然而，仍需要进一步的工作来简化纯化、特征分析和生物标志物鉴定过程，以确保为患者带来最佳结果。
