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Updated: Jul 1, 2025
Isolation and Characterization of Microvesicles from Peripheral Blood
Published on: January 6, 2017
Thermophoretic glycan profiling of extracellular vesicles for triple-negative breast cancer management
Yike Li1,2, Shaohua Zhang3, Chao Liu4,5
1Beijing Engineering Research Center for BioNanotechnology, CAS Key Laboratory of Standardization and Measurement for Nanotechnology, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, 100190, China.
Abstract:
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly metastatic and heterogeneous type of breast cancer with poor outcomes. Precise, non-invasive methods for diagnosis, monitoring and prognosis of TNBC are particularly challenging due to a paucity of TNBC biomarkers. Glycans on extracellular vesicles (EVs) hold the promise as valuable biomarkers, but conventional methods for glycan analysis are not feasible in clinical practice. Here, we report that a lectin-based thermophoretic assay (EVLET) streamlines vibrating membrane filtration (VMF) and thermophoretic amplification, allowing for rapid, sensitive, selective and cost-effective EV glycan profiling in TNBC plasma. A pilot cohort study shows that the EV glycan signature reaches 91% accuracy for TNBC detection and 96% accuracy for longitudinal monitoring of TNBC therapeutic response. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential of EV glycan signature for predicting TNBC progression. Our EVLET system lays the foundation for non-invasive cancer management by EV glycans.
