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Microfluidic Methods for Molecular Biology pp 113–139Cite as

Microfluidic Multistage Integration for Analysis of Circulating Exosomes

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Abstract

The study of circulating exosomes has received growing interest in fields of biology and medicine. Exosomes, small (50–150 nm) membrane vesicles of endocytic origin, have emerged as new mechanisms for regulation of a wide range of biological processes, including intercellular communications, immune response, and cancer metastasis. Molecular analysis of exosomes is an emerging paradigm for noninvasive cancer diagnosis and monitoring of disease treatment; however, exosome analysis is challenging due to current low-efficient isolation and molecular measurement approaches. In this chapter, a novel microfluidic strategy is described for rapid, quantitative isolation and analysis of exosomes, as well as intravesicular markers directly from human blood. This microfluidic platform enables multistage integration of immunomagnetic isolation and enrichment, chemical lysis, and immune-sandwich chemifluorescence probing in one sequential process. The developed microfluidic exosome profiling platform has been employed to measure expression levels of total and phosphorylated IGF-1R in non-small-cell lung cancer patient plasma-derived exosomes, thereby opening a new avenue for monitoring IGF-1R and its activation status in a noninvasive manner (i.e., liquid biopsy). This developed microfluidic exosome profiling platform shows great potential for forming the basis of a critically needed infrastructure to advance the biological and clinical utilization of exosomes.

Keywords

  • Exosomes
  • Biomarker
  • Cancer diagnosis
  • Microfluidic multistage integration
  • Intravesicular marker

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Johnson Cancer Research Center, College of Engineering, Kansas State University, Seaton Hall 129, 920N. 17th Street, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA

    Mei He Ph.D.

  2. Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA

    Andrew Godwin

  3. University of Kansas Cancer Center, Kansas City, KS, USA

    Andrew Godwin & Yong Zeng Ph.D.

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of Kansas, 1251 Wescoe Hall Dr., Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA

    Yong Zeng Ph.D.

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  1. Mei He Ph.D.
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  2. Andrew Godwin
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  3. Yong Zeng Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Yong Zeng Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

    Chang Lu

  2. Dpt of Biomedical Engg. & Mechanics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

    Scott S. Verbridge

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He, M., Godwin, A., Zeng, Y. (2016). Microfluidic Multistage Integration for Analysis of Circulating Exosomes. In: Lu, C., Verbridge, S. (eds) Microfluidic Methods for Molecular Biology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30019-1_6

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