A New Strategy to Modify Glass for Capture and Detection of Small Extracellular Vesicles

Area of Science:

• Biomaterials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) are crucial biomarkers due to their inherited membrane proteins from parent cells.
• Microfluidic platforms offer promising avenues for sEV capture, often requiring surface modifications for enhanced efficiency.
• Current methods for sEV capture on glass substrates necessitate complex modifications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel, one-step surface modification method, silane-PEG-DSPE, for efficient sEV capture on glass substrates.
• To evaluate the efficiency of the silane-PEG-DSPE method for sEV capture and detection.
• To assess the potential of this platform for detecting breast cancer biomarkers in patient plasma.

Main Methods:

• Developed a silane-PEG-DSPE surface modification for covalent attachment to hydroxylated glass.
• Optimized silane-PEG-DSPE modification conditions.
• Utilized fluorescent imaging and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for sEV capture and detection, including EpCAM-positive sEVs.

Main Results:

• The silane-PEG-DSPE modification demonstrated efficient capture of sEVs on glass surfaces.
• SERS successfully detected EpCAM-positive sEVs, indicating platform applicability for various detection methods.
• The SERS-based method achieved high specificity and sensitivity (1.6 × 10^7 particles/mL) for detecting sEVs in breast cancer patient plasma, with higher EpCAM expression observed in BC-derived sEVs.

Conclusions:

• The one-step silane-PEG-DSPE modification provides an effective platform for sEV capture and detection.
• The developed method shows significant potential for sensitive and specific detection of cancer biomarkers.
• This approach is poised for broad applications in disease diagnosis, particularly for early cancer detection.