Open Access

ARTICLE

Exosomes: Key tools for cancer liquid biopsy

ISABELLA PANFOLI^1,*, MAURIZIO BRUSCHI², GIOVANNI CANDIANO²

1 Dipartimento di Farmacia-DIFAR, Università di Genova, Genoa, 16132, Italy
2 Laboratory of Molecular Nephrology, IRCCS Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Genoa, 16147, Italy

* Corresponding Author: Isabella Panfoli,

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Extracellular Vesicles and Cancer)

BIOCELL 2022, 46(10), 2167-2176. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2022.020154

Received 07 November 2021; Accepted 11 February 2022; Issue published 13 June 2022

Abstract

Precision medicine is based on the identification of biomarkers of tumor development and progression. Liquid biopsy is at the forefront of the ability to gather diagnostic and prognostic information on tumors, as it can be noninvasively performed prior or during treatment. Liquid biopsy mostly utilizes circulating tumor cells, or free DNA, but also exosomes. The latter are nanovesicles secreted by most cell types, found in any body fluid that deliver proteins, nucleic acids and lipids to nearby and distant cells with a unique homing ability. Exosomes function in signalling between the tumor microenvironment and the rest of the body, promoting metastasis, immune remodelling and drug resistance. Exosomes are emerging as a key tool in precision medicine for cancer liquid biopsy, as they efficiently preserve their biomarker cargo. Moreover, exosomes strongly resemble the parental cell, which can help in assessing the oxidative and metabolic state of the donor cell. In this respect, exosomes represent one of the most promising new tools to fight cancer. This review will discuss the clinical applications of profiling exosomal proteins and lipids by high-throughput proteomics and metabolomics, and nucleic acids by next generation sequencing, as well as how this may allow cancer diagnosis, therapy response monitoring and recurrence detection.

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