Abstract

Cancer pathology is dramatically mediated by a number of key proteins, lipids, small molecules, and nucleic acids trafficked in exosomes and related nanoscale extracellular vesicles (EVs). Sensitive and specific detection of the cell-specific biomaterials recruited and packaged in EVs has the potential to improve identification and monitoring of cancer, particularly for those types lacking early screening. Yet current methods for phenotyping EVs released into blood circulation cannot easily nor rapidly distinguish tumor-associated from non-tumor associated particles.

This talk introduces our lab’s Raman spectroscopy platform to molecularly characterize EVs and quantitatively assess chemical composition at single particle resolution. We show that tumor-released EVs can be readily distinguished from healthy ones using label-free spectroscopy analysis. By extending to surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) via nanoscale metal substrates and particles, we can achieve rapid, sensitive detection of tumor EVs in patient biofluids, which has recently opened up new insights to the importance of the EVs’ glycocalyx coating for improved diagnostic specificity.