Research advances for exosomal miRNAs detection in biosensing: From the massive study to the individual study

Exosomal miRNAs (exo-miRNAs) derived from cancer cell play a vital role in cancer development and can be considered as a potential biomarker for cancer diagnostic. However, the shortage of sensitive preparatory and analytical technologies limits their clinical applications. Thus, sensitive and reliable sensing of exo-miRNAs is essential in medical diagnostics. Mounting number of biosensor strategies are thus actively being proposed to deal with these challenges, including nanoparticle, isothermal amplification, and microfluidic chips. Moreover, some delivery strategies have been found for individual exo-miRNAs detection, such as membrane fusion, nano-sized probe and membrane denatured. Therefore, we summarize and discuss the recent progress of emerging biosensor assays for sensing exo-miRNAs. In addition, challenges and outlook for exo-miRNAs detection are considered.