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Updated: May 3, 2026

MicroRNA Based Liquid Biopsy: The Experience of the Plasma miRNA Signature Classifier MSC for Lung Cancer Screening
Published on: October 26, 2017
miRNA in plasma exosome is stable under different storage conditions
Qinyu Ge1, Youxia Zhou2, Jiafeng Lu3
1Key Laboratory for Child Development and Learning Science, Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. geqinyu@seu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Exosomes are small membrane-bound vesicles secreted by most cell types. Exosomes contain various functional proteins, mRNAs and microRNAs (miRNAs) that could be used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. How we should store the samples before RNA isolation and whether those long term stored samples could be used for circulating RNA investigation because of RNase is unknown. The aim of the study was to determine the stability of circulating miRNA in exosomes and plasma. Exosomes were isolated from plasma samples by using ExoQuick Precipitation methods. RNA was extracted from exosomes and the corresponding plasma samples with a Qiagen miRNeasy Mini kit. The concentration of RNA was measured by a Qubit® RNA HS Assay Kit, and quantitative PCR was used for individual miRNA expression level detection. Results showed that exosomal miRNA showed extra stability under different storage conditions and no significant influence on plasma miRNA, except for short term storage at 4 °C. It is thus indicated that exosome miRNAs can be good biomarkers based on their stability under various storage conditions.
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