This technology is a method for isolating and sorting extracellular vesicles in differentiated cell cultures and in blood samples for targeted, cell type-specific diagnostics.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-secreted vesicles that circulate in the body and contain a variety of biomarkers relevant to their parent cells. Analysis of EVs from patient blood samples presents an opportunity for non-invasive, tissue-specific diagnostics of a variety of conditions ranging from diabetes to cancer. However, current procedures to isolate EVs result in a heterogeneous mixture of EVs that make it difficult to determine each vesicle’s tissue of origin.
This technology describes a method for EV isolation and sorting according to their parental cell type. Specific markers are identified by culturing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and determining markers in the first differentiated cell type. Unlike current bulk analyses of EVs, the technology also identifies and sorts the EVs by cell-specific markers to examine the pathophysiological state of the parent cell’s tissue of origin. This method can also simultaneously screen vesicles from several organ systems from a single patient sample. Thus, this technology improves diagnostic techniques, and with a small blood sample, provides diagnostic information on the pathophysiological status of multiple organ systems in the body.
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Ph.D.
IR CU19242
Licensing Contact: Cynthia Lang
