Extracellular vesicle isolation methods: rising impact of size-exclusion chromatography.

Extracellular vesicle isolation methods: rising impact of size-exclusion chromatography. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2019 Mar 19;: Authors: Monguió-Tortajada M, Gálvez-Montón C, Bayes-Genis A, Roura S, Borràs FE Abstract Extracellular vesicles (EVs) include a variety of nanosized vesicles released to the extracellular microenvironment by the vast majority of cells transferring bioactive lipids, proteins, mRNA, miRNA or non-coding RNA, as means of intercellular communication. Remarkably, among other fields of research, their use has become promising for immunomodulation, tissue repair and as source for novel disease-specific molecular signatures or biomarkers. However, a major challenge is to define accurate, reliable and easily implemented techniques for EV isolation due to their nanoscale size and high heterogeneity. In this context, differential ultracentrifugation (dUC) has been the most widely used laboratory methodology, but alternative procedures have emerged to allow purer EV preparations with easy implementation. Here, we present and discuss the most used of the different EV isolation methods, focusing on the increasing impact of size exclusion chromatography (SEC) on the resulting EV preparations from in vitro cultured cells-conditioned medium and biological fluids. Comparatively, low protein content and cryo-electron microscopy analysis show that SEC removes most of the overabundant soluble plasma proteins, which are not discard...
Source: Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences : CMLS - Category: Cytology Authors: Tags: Cell Mol Life Sci Source Type: research