Precise detection of early melanomas is essential as the stage of disease guides treatment options. One growing field that may facilitate the advancement of early melanoma detection, is achieved through profiling serum extracellular vesicles (EVs) using sensitive nanotechnology. As a proof of principle, using a detection platform that combines a microfluidic device and surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), the expression profiles of 4 protein biomarkers in serum EVs (termed as “EV SERS signatures”) derived from 20 early stage melanoma patients (including in situ melanoma) and 21 healthy participants are multiplexed. Significantly higher signal intensities of selected protein biomarkers are observed in serum EVs from melanoma patients compared with healthy participants, with mean fold‐changes ranging from 3.7 to 4.2. It is demonstrated that the EV SERS signatures can accurately separate melanoma patients and healthy individuals, with an area under the curve of 0.95. Thus, with further development, this ultra‐sensitive detection platform, combined with the panel of melanoma‐associated biomarkers, has the ability to differentiate early stage melanoma patients from healthy participants.

Identifying small extracellular vesicle (sEV) subpopulations based on their different molecular signatures could potentially reveal the functional roles in physiology and pathology. However, it is a challenge to achieve this aim due to the nanosized dimensions of sEVs, low quantities of biological cargo each sEV carries, and our incomplete knowledge of identifying features capable of separating heterogeneous sEV subpopulations. Here, a sensitive, multiplexed, and nano-mixing-enhanced sEV subpopulation characterization platform (ESCP) is proposed to precisely determine the sEV phenotypic heterogeneity and understand the role of sEV heterogeneity in cancer progression and metastasis. The ESCP utilizes spatially patterned antitetraspanin-functionalized micro-arrays for sEV subpopulation sorting and nanobarcode-based surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for multiplexed read-outs. An ESCP has been used for investigating sEV phenotypic heterogeneity in terms of canonical sEV tetraspanin molecules and cancer-associated protein biomarkers in both cancer cell line models and cancer patient samples. Our data explicitly demonstrate the selective enrichment of tetraspanins and cancer-associated protein biomarkers, in particular sEV subpopulations. Therefore, it is believed that the ESCP could enable the evaluation and broader application of sEV subpopulations as potential diagnostic disease biomarkers.

The development of a minimally-invasive technique for early-stage lung cancer detection is crucial to reducing mortality. Phenotyping of tumor-associated extracellular vesicles (EVs) has the potential for early-stage lung cancer detection,...

Correction for ‘Plasma extracellular vesicle phenotyping for the differentiation of early-stage lung cancer and benign lung diseases’ by Liwen Yuan et al., Nanoscale Horiz., 2023, 8, 746–758, https://doi.org/10.1039/d2nh00570k.

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