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Updated: Oct 6, 2025
Harnessing the Power of MicroRNA Cargoes in Small Extracellular Vesicles Released from Fresh-Frozen Human Brain Sections
Published on: November 8, 2024
Using genetically modified extracellular vesicles as a non-invasive strategy to evaluate brain-specific cargo
David Rufino-Ramos1, Sevda Lule2, Shadi Mahjoum2
1Neurology and Radiology Department, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 13(th)Street, Building 149, Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA; CNC-Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Rua Larga, Coimbra, 3004-504, Portugal; Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, 3000-548, Portugal; CIBB-Center for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Researchers developed a novel platform to isolate and track brain-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) in blood. This breakthrough enables monitoring of brain cell status through easily accessible biofluids, advancing neuroscience research.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Biotechnology
- Molecular Biology
Background:
- Monitoring brain cell status in vivo is challenging due to a lack of effective tracing techniques.
- Extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by brain cells into biofluids like blood may offer a window into brain health.
- Identifying brain-derived EVs in blood is difficult due to their low concentration among peripheral EVs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a sensitive platform for selecting and analyzing brain-derived EVs from blood.
- To enable the study of molecular fingerprints of brain cells using isolated EVs.
- To establish a method for tracking neural EVs in complex biofluid environments.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a transducible construct to tag tetraspanin CD63 on EVs with affinity, bioluminescent, and fluorescent tags.
- Developed a platform for efficient isolation of pre-labelled, brain-derived EVs from blood.
- Performed multiplex analyses (transcript and protein levels) on isolated neural EVs.
Main Results:
- Achieved unprecedented efficiency in isolating neural EVs from blood.
- Successfully isolated EVs from pre-labelled mouse brain cells and human neuronal progenitor cells (hNPCs).
- Demonstrated the capability of multiplex molecular analyses on the isolated EVs.
Conclusions:
- The novel platform enables efficient isolation of brain-derived EVs from blood.
- This strategy opens new avenues for studying neural EVs and brain cell status non-invasively.
- The method supports multibiomolecule analysis of EVs, reflecting their source cell composition.
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