Abstract
The concept of liquid biopsy has emerged as a novel approach for cancer screening, which is based on the analysis of circulating cancer biomarkers in body fluids. Among the various circulating cancer biomarkers, including Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved circulating tumor cells (CTC) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), exosomes have attracted tremendous attention due to their ability to diagnose cancer in its early stages with high efficiency. Recently, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been applied for the detection of cancer exosomes due to its high sensitivity, specificity, and multiplexing capability. In this article, we review recent progress in the development of SERS-based technologies for in vitro identification of circulating cancer exosomes. The accent is made on the detection strategies and interpretation of the SERS data. The problems of detecting cancer-derived exosomes from patient samples and future perspectives of SERS-based diagnostics are also discussed.
Highlights
The accurate detection and diagnosis of cancer in the very early stages of its progression is highly important to increase the probability of achieving a successful treatment
Kerr et al implemented Raman and SERS spectroscopy to study the compositional differences between exosomes derived from ovarian carcinoma cells, cultivated at normal (21%) and reduced
In this work we reviewed the latest results when applying the SERS method for isolation, identification, and analysis of exosome-like vesicles
Summary
The accurate detection and diagnosis of cancer in the very early stages of its progression is highly important to increase the probability of achieving a successful treatment. Quantification and analysis of ctDNA present in cancer patient’s blood is another Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved liquid biopsy method that can become a supplement to conventional biopsies due to its high sensitivity and easy access to genomic information of the patient Access to such information allows the selection of the most appropriate treatment and to monitor its effectiveness in real-time. The SERS signals are generated by a Raman reporter encapsulated in the SERS tags or the spectral shifts are monitored as a result of the structural deformation of the bond in the event of antibody—antigen binding [85,86,87] These strategies have been implemented for the detection of relevant biomolecules like proteins, DNA, RNA, and cancer markers, as well as macromolecular structures such as bacterial cells and viruses [88,89,90,91,92,93]. We discuss the methodology for detection of exosomes and interpretation of SERS results in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and performance
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