Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are biological particles ranging in size from about 30 - 10,000 nanometers in diameter. Extracellular vesicles comprise diverse types of particles having a broad range of physical properties and biological origin, and include exosomes, ectosomes, microvesicles, microparticles, oncosomes, and apoptotic bodies. Extracellular vesicles have roles associated with an equally broad set of biological processes, including immune response, transfer of functional proteins and nucleic acid, elimination of unwanted materials, nutrition, surface-receptor mediated cell signaling, and numerous conditions of disease including cancer metastasis. Because of their involvement in so many physiological processes, extracellular vesicles hold enormous potential as therapeutics and biomarkers of health and disease. In these applications, accurate quantification of extracellular vesicles is critical for performing well controlled science, as well as ensuring safety and efficacy of extracellular vesicle-based products.
Spectradyne's nCS1 delivers the most accurate concentration and size measurements of extracellular vesicles available in a practical bench top solution. The nCS1 is fast and easy to use, and requires only 3 microliters of your sample to help you do better EV science.
Spectradyne's Arc delivers single-particle fluorescence combined with MRPS measurements, yielding size and phenotype for each individual nanoparticle, providing unparalleled individualized characterization not available with any other instrument. The Arc is fast and easy to use, and requires only 3 microliters of your sample to help you do better EV science.
For measuring the biological activity of exosomes, characterizing vesicles of different biological origin and exploring vesicle biomarker applications, accurate concentration measurements are critical for performing well-controlled experiments.
The figure below shows a comparison of Spectradyne's nCS1 to NTA and the gold standard, Cryo-TEM. The nCS1 measurements are in excellent agreement with those of TEM, and indicate that the exosome concentration increases to smaller particle size down to 50 nm. In contrast, NTA reports misleading results: A loss of counting efficiency is apparent for particles as large as 200 nm in diameter, leading to a 10,000-fold error by 65 nm. Critically, NTA reports a prominent peak in the exosome size distribution near 130 nm diameter that does not in fact exist. Read more about why this happens.
More researchers are choosing Spectradyne's instruments for extracellular vesicle quantification because these are fast and easy to use and deliver a more accurate analysis of their vesicles than they can obtain using any other method.
The purity of extracellular vesicles isolated by size exclusion chromatography or ultracentrifugation is critical for downstream applications and analysis. Spectradyne's Arc delivers highly accurate EV fluorescence analysis and size concentration from 50 nm up, enabling researchers to increase traceability and reproducibility in their science by properly characterizing their EV purification protocols.
Figure 2 shows the distribution of EV fluorescence and concentration as a function of size obtained with Spectradyne's Arc for 8 EV fractions separated by size exclusion chromatography. The high-resolution measurements deliver two main conclusions. First, the majority of EVs eluted in fractions 3, 4 and 5. Second, each of these fractions contained a broad distribution of sizes in the sample, indicating further purification of this sample would be required to isolate a specific size range of EVs.
Spectradyne's nCS1 and Arc deliver the most accurate concentration and size measurements of extracellular vesicles available in a practical bench top solution. Both the Arc and the nCS1 are fast and easy to use, and require only 3 microliters of your sample to help you do better EV science. Contact us today for a free sample measurement or to request a demonstration!