Abstract
The field of extracellular vesicles (EV) is rapidly expanding, also within cardiovascular diseases. Besides their exciting roles in cell-to-cell communication, EV have the potential to serve as excellent biomarkers, since their counts, content, and origin might provide useful information about the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disorders. Various studies have already indicated associations of EV counts and content with cardiovascular diseases. However, EV research is complicated by several factors, most notably the small size of EV. In this review, the advantages and drawbacks of EV-related methods and applications as biomarkers are highlighted.
Highlights
After having been disregarded for decades, extracellular vesicles (EV) are in sharp focus as mediators of cell-to-cell communication and their importance is currently being investigated for many diseases
Extracellular vesicles are derived from parent cells and tissues and can be classified into roughly 3 classes: (I) microvesicles that originate from budding of the cell membrane, (II) exosomes, that have endosomal/intracellular organelle origin and (III) apoptotic bodies, that are generated during programmed cell death
EV can be isolated to purity solely based on their physicochemical properties, because they are larger in size than the protein fraction yet smaller than whole cells, more dense than the lipid fraction, with a rather defined density range and quite robust due to their membrane encapsulation
Summary
After having been disregarded for decades, extracellular vesicles (EV) are in sharp focus as mediators of cell-to-cell communication and their importance is currently being investigated for many diseases. EV can be isolated to purity solely based on their physicochemical properties, because they are larger in size than the protein fraction yet smaller than whole cells, more dense than the lipid fraction, with a rather defined density range and quite robust due to their membrane encapsulation. In addition to these physical properties, EV possess a palette of surface markers specific for the parent cell type. The filter system described in this study is custom made and not commercially available (as many published experimental setups), the approach appears to have potential to become a standard method for EV isolation
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