Abstract
We report spatial separation of extracellular vesicle (EVs) populations based on particle size by using an approach that exploits Marangoni flow and the coffee-ring effect in microdroplets. Sequential transfer of a drying droplet progressively increases the mean size of EVs in the sample by repeated subsampling of a droplet during coffee-ring formation. This method allows size-based sorting, separation, and eventual retrieval of EVs for RNA and protein analysis. To demonstrate the biomedical relevance of this method, EVs from prostate cancer patients were analyzed; results revealed that the expression of cancer-associated genes and proteins was higher in small EVs than in large EVs. This ability to sort EVs using a combination of coffee ring with Marangoni flow and sequential droplet-transfer allows analysis of subpopulations of EVs, and will facilitate further studies of EVs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3326-3336 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Lab on a Chip |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 19 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 7 Oct 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported in part by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP) (NRF-2018R1A2B3006280), and in kind by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Plasma samples from prostate cancer patients and benign prostate hyperplasia patients were obtained from the Korea Prostate Bank (Seoul, Korea).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
