Toward characterizing extracellular vesicles at a single-particle level

Chun-yi Chiang and
Chihchen ChenEmail author View ORCID ID profile

Journal of Biomedical Science201926:9

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12929-019-0502-4

Received: 21 September 2018
Accepted: 9 January 2019
Published: 15 January 2019

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-derived membrane-bound vesicles that serve a means of cell-cell communication. Studying EVs at a single-particle level is important because EVs are inherently heterogeneous. Novel micro- and nanotechnological tools have open opportunities for realizing single-EV measurements exploiting their biochemical, electrical, mechanical, and/or optical properties. This review summarizes the recent development of technologies toward sorting and analyzing single EVs. Sorting EVs into a more homogeneous subset relaxes the sensitivity and throughput required on the EV detection, and hence related techniques are also included in this review. These exciting technologies are on the rise and will expand our understanding of EVs and their applications in the near future.