Dye-free spectrophotometric measurement of nucleic acid-to-protein ratio for cell-selective extracellular vesicle discrimination.

TitleDye-free spectrophotometric measurement of nucleic acid-to-protein ratio for cell-selective extracellular vesicle discrimination.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2021
AuthorsSun D, Zhao Z, Spiegel S, Liu Y, Fan J, Amrollahi P, Hu J, Lyon CJ, Wan M, Hu TY
JournalBiosens Bioelectron
Volume179
Pagination113058
Date Published2021 May 01
ISSN1873-4235
KeywordsBiomarkers, Biosensing Techniques, Extracellular Vesicles, Humans, Nucleic Acids, Proteins
Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) can represent a novel source of disease biomarkers, and are under intensive study for their clinical potential. Most EV-based cancer diagnostic studies have focused on establishing EV assays that detect increased expression of a single cancer-associated marker or marker signatures based on multiplex detection of these biomarkers. EV biomarker readouts can be obscured by high background signal leading to false positives, and may markedly differ between analyses due to variation in sample purity during EV isolation. This can obstruct the comparisons among studies and lead to conflicting conclusions. This work reports that the nucleic acid to protein UV absorption ratio of an EV is a cell-specific EV characteristic. This EV collective attribute can be measured at low-cost to discriminate EVs derived from malignant and non-malignant cells rather than employing single markers that may be cancer- or subtype-specific. Our work also highlighted the application for accessing purity in EV preparations irrelevant to EV yield. It can be employed to distinguish from patients with and without malignant disease upon analysis of EVs isolated from their serum samples.

DOI10.1016/j.bios.2021.113058
Alternate JournalBiosens Bioelectron
PubMed ID33592557
PubMed Central IDPMC7995647
Grant ListR21 AI126361 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
R01 AI113725 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
R01 HD090927 / HD / NICHD NIH HHS / United States
R01 AI122932 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
R03 CA252783 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
Related Faculty: 
Zhen Zhao, Ph.D.

Pathology & Laboratory Medicine 1300 York Avenue New York, NY 10065 Phone: (212) 746-6464
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