Open Access
ARTICLE
Exosomes: Key tools for cancer liquid biopsy
ISABELLA PANFOLI1,*, 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 this 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.
Keywords
Cite This Article
PANFOLI, I., BRUSCHI, M., CANDIANO, G. (2022). Exosomes: Key tools for cancer liquid biopsy.
BIOCELL, 46(10), 2167–2176.