Plasmon-Enhanced Biosensing for Multiplexed Profiling of Extracellular Vesicles

Area of Science:

• Biochemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Molecular Biology

Background:

• Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are crucial for cell-to-cell communication and emerging as biomarkers in liquid biopsies.
• Analyzing single EVs offers valuable insights into disease, but faces challenges due to low signal detection and limited labeling areas.
• Current methods struggle with sensitivity for detecting transmembrane and intravesicular EV markers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a highly sensitive method for multiplexed analysis of extracellular vesicle (EV) markers.
• To overcome the limitations of current single EV detection techniques.
• To enable detailed characterization of EV subtypes and heterogeneity.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of plasmon-enhanced fluorescence detection using gold nanohole structures.
• Excitation of surface plasmon resonances to amplify fluorescence signals.
• Single EV analysis for both transmembrane and intravesicular markers.

Main Results:

• Achieved a one-order-of-magnitude amplification of fluorescence signals across multiple channels.
• Demonstrated the capability to detect both transmembrane and intravesicular markers at the single EV level.
• Validated a simple yet powerful method for enhanced EV marker analysis.

Conclusions:

• The developed method significantly improves sensitivity for single EV protein analysis.
• This technique provides new opportunities for molecular diagnostics using non-invasive liquid biopsies.
• Offers enhanced insights into EV heterogeneity and dynamics in disease progression.