Abstract

The Hopes and Hypes of EV-based Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Delivery in Cancer

Lorraine O’Driscoll, Professor, Trinity College Dublin

Increasing evidence indicates that substantial "cargos of information" involved in cell-to-cell communication are transported out of cells and into body fluids via membrane-surrounded vesicles that are then termed extracellular vesicles (EVs). EVs content seems to include proteins, RNAs and DNA. These -collectively termed extracellular vesicles (EVs)- released from cells were originally considered as junk but are now considered to be mini-maps of their cells of origin.

Some EVs are released from healthy cells and are associated with a range of physiological functions. In cancer, studies of cell lines, animal models and serum or plasma from patients and healthy individuals have advocated EVs in a positive light as minimally-invasive diagnostics and predictive biomarkers, based on relative EV quantitative and/or contents.