Adherence to minimal experimental requirements for defining extracellular vesicles and their functions

Rigorous measures are required to cope with the advance of extracellular vesicle (EV) research, from 183 studies published in 2012 to 2,309 studies published in 2020. The International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) proposed Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles (MISEV) guidelines in 2014, updated in 2018, for assuring and improving EV research quality. We performed a systematic review using a text mining approach to assess adherence to MISEV criteria. A keyword search was conducted in 5,093 accessible publications over the period 2012-2020 and analyzed the methodology used for EV isolation and characterization. We found a significant improvement over the years particularly regarding EV characterization where recent papers used a higher number of methods and EV markers to check for quantity and purity. Interestingly, we also found that EV papers using more methods and EV markers were cited more frequently. Papers citing MISEV criteria were more prone to use a higher number of characterization methods. We therefore established a concise checklist summarizing MISEV criteria to support EV researchers towards reaching the highest standards in the field.