Platelet-derived microparticles analysis: Techniques, challenges and recommendations

Platelet-derived microparticles (PMP) are nano size fragments (100-1000 nm) released from platelets under various physiological and pathological conditions. PMP are the most abundant microparticles present in human blood. In recent past years PMP have caught attention of many clinicians as well as researchers for being associated with many diseases like cardio-vascular diseases, infections etc; and have emerged as potential biomarkers. Owing to their small size and diverse phenotype, structure and functions, microparticles including PMP render many challenges during sample handling, estimation and characterization. PMP can be analyzed for many parameters like absolute count, size distribution, functions, content, surface proteins and other phenotypic characteristics. Many techniques have been invented to analyze PMP and other extracellular vesicles for these parameters, but none of them is capable of examining all parameters alone. Apart from it, every technique has its own advantages, limitations and sets of recommendations while using it. This often leads to applying multiple techniques in combination for accurately measuring various parameters and user has to decide cautiously which technique has to be used for their selected parameter testing. This review compiles various methods, techniques, challenges during PMP analysis and recommendations based on previous studies, aimed at guiding users for selecting the most suitable techniques for their experiments with PMP.