Recent advances of aptasensors for exosomes detection

Exosomes are nanoscale phospholipid bilayer membrane-enclosed vesicles released from cells with diameters of 30-150 nm. Their contents reflect significant information regarding the cancer microenvironment from their parent cells, which attracts increasing attention as potential biomarkers for noninvasive early diagnosis. Among their detection methods, aptasensor has been becoming an attractive star with its properties of affordability, easy to use, fast response, high sensitivity, remarkable specificity, and multiplexing capability. This review mainly summarizes the recent advances of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) aptamer-based sensors for cancer and tumor-derived exosomes detection. Firstly, we present a brief overview of aptamers and exosomes. Then, we introduce the exosomal proteins used as potential biomarkers of various cancers, and their specific ssDNA aptamers used in aptasensors. We emphasize eight major types of aptasensors: fluorescent, electrochemical, colorimetric, luminescence, lateral flow strips, surface-enhanced Raman scattering, surface plasmon resonance, and giant magnetoresistance sensors, based on fabrication methods, bio-recognition mechanism, as well as detection evaluation. The future directions and challenges are finally proposed for aptamers and their more applications in exosomes research.