Isolation and Characterization of Extracellular Vesicles from Lymphocytes

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nanosized particles secreted by all cells as a means of communication. When it comes to the immune system, most of the studies have focused on the regulation of T cells by EVs derived from other cells, such as dendritic cells, tumor cells, and mesenchymal stem cells. Nevertheless, the communication between T cells, and from T cells to other cells via EVs must also exist and influence various physiological and pathological functions. Here, we describe sequential filtration; a new method for the physical isolation of vesicles based on their size. Furthermore, we describe several methods that can be applied to characterize both size and markers of the isolated EVs derived from T cells. This protocol overcomes the limitations of some of the current methods and offers a high yield of EVs from a low number of T cells.