Exosomes: Key tools for cancer liquid biopsy

Abstract

Precision medicine is based on the identification of biomarkers of tumor development and progression. Liquid biopsy is at the forefront of the ability to gather diagnostic and prognostic information on tumors, as it can be noninvasively performed prior or during treatment. Liquid biopsy mostly utilizes circulating tumor cells, or free DNA, but also exosomes. The latter are nanovesicles secreted by most cell types, found in any body fluid that deliver proteins, nucleic acids and lipids to nearby and distant cells with a unique homing ability. Exosomes function in signalling between the tumor microenvironment and the rest of the body, promoting metastasis, immune remodelling and drug resistance. Exosomes are emerging as a key tool in precision medicine for cancer liquid biopsy, as they efficiently preserve their biomarker cargo. Moreover, exosomes strongly resemble the parental cell, which can help in assessing the oxidative and metabolic state of the donor cell. In this respect, exosomes represent one of the most promising new tools to fight cancer. This review will discuss the clinical applications of profiling exosomal proteins and lipids by high-throughput proteomics and metabolomics, and nucleic acids by next generation sequencing, as well as how this may allow cancer diagnosis, therapy response monitoring and recurrence detection.

Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis and Support Vector Machine Learning in the Proteomic Profiling of Cerebrospinal Fluid from Extraventricular Drainage in Child Medulloblastoma

“…Cancer-derived EVs were shown to affect the tumor microenvironment by remodeling the extracellular matrix, promoting tumor progression [25]. Therefore, EVs have potential as a tumor biomarker source [26]. In particular, Ex contribute to signal transduction between the tumor and the rest of the body, being involved in metastasis and therapy resistance [27].…”

“…By contrast, Mv resemble more closely the parental cell, being useful in assessing its oxidative and metabolic state [21]. In this respect, EVs represent promising new tools [27] in precision medicine for cancer liquid biopsy [26]. In this study, we sampled the proteome of waste CSF from extraventricular drainage (EVD) from six children with MB and six controls needing EVD insertion for unrelated causes.…”