Title: A Single Extracellular Vesicle (EV) Flow Cytometry Approach to Reveal EV Heterogeneity.

Authors: Shen, Wen; Guo, Kaizhu; Adkins, Gary Brent; Jiang, Qiaoshi; Liu, Yang; Sedano, Sabrina; Duan, Yaokai; Yan, Wei; Wang, Shizhen Emily; Bergersen, Kristina; Worth, Danielle; Wilson, Emma H; Zhong, Wenwan

Published In Angew Chem Int Ed Engl, (2018 11 26)

Abstract: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) actively participate in intercellular communication and pathological processes. Studying the molecular signatures of EVs is key to reveal their biological functions and clinical values, which, however, is greatly hindered by their sub-100 nm dimensions, the low quantities of biomolecules each EV carries, and the large population heterogeneity. Now, single-EV flow cytometry analysis is introduced to realize single EV counting and phenotyping in a conventional flow cytometer for the first time, enabled by target-initiated engineering (TIE) of DNA nanostructures on each EV. By illuminating multiple markers on single EVs, statistically significant differences are revealed among the molecular signatures of EVs originating from several breast cancer cell lines, and the cancer cell-derived EVs among the heterogeneous EV populations are successfully recognized. Thus, our approach holds great potential for various biological and biomedical applications.

PubMed ID: 30291794

MeSH Terms: Breast Neoplasms/chemistry*; Breast Neoplasms/metabolism; Extracellular Vesicles/chemistry; Extracellular Vesicles/metabolism*; Female; Flow Cytometry*; Humans; Particle Size