Latest advances in extracellular vesicles: from bench to bedside

Figures & data

Figure 1. EV production procedure.

Table 1. Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of various EV isolation methods.

Method	Advantage	Disadvantage	References
Ultracentrifugation & differential ultracentrifugation	Most common method, isolation from large sample volumes and multiple samples, no additional reagents	Time consuming procedure, EVs damaged from high speed centrifugation, contamination of non-EV fraction	[25,32–33]
Density gradient centrifugation (sucrose or iodixanol gradients)	High purity, no additional reagents	Complex procedure, loss of samples, affected by ultracentrifugation time	[28,35,37]
Size-exclusion chromatography	High purity and high reproducibility, reduced sample loss and EV aggregation, no additional reagents	Limitation on sample volumes, complex procedure, necessity of additional equipment, only one sample in each column, high cost	[27,34]
Polymer-based precipitation	Low cost, simple procedure,	Contamination and retention of the polymer	[31]
Antibody-coated immunobead method	High purity and high selectivity	Difficulty with detachment of the molecules, non-sopecific binding, existence of intact EVs, high cost	[26,29]
Ultrafiltration	Simple and fast procedure, the ability to process many samples simultaneously, no additional reagents	Loss of samples, contamination, poor biological activity	[36]
Microfluidic methods	High purity and efficiency,	Complexity of devices, necessity of additional equipment, high cost	[39,84,85]

Figure 2. Communication in the tumor microenvironment via EVs.

Figure 3. ExoScreen method is suitable for liquid biopsy.

Figure 4. EVs are a powerful and promising tool for cancer therapy.

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