Serum extracellular vesicle proteome differentiate early stage liver fibrosis

Abstract

The staging of liver fibrosis is crucial for its early detection and treatment. However, there is still lacking of effective method for the diagnosis of early liver fibrosis. Extracellular vesicles have shown great potential in disease diagnosis due to its specific role in cell-cell communication. Here we analyzed the serum extracellular vesicles proteome from fibrotic mice in a data independent acquisition manner. Totally, we identified 869 proteins commonly present in the serum samples. After systematical data filtering for differentially expressed proteins, the potential markers for the diagnosis of early liver fibrosis were obtained. Six vital differentially expressed proteins (HSPA8, EEF2, EEF1A1, PLG, SERPINC1, HRG) were further verified as a potential candidate biomarker panel, which could discriminate early-stage fibrosis mice from normal mice. This is the first time to differentiate early-stage liver fibrosis with serum extracellular vesicles proteome and its derived marker molecules.