Microfluidic Approaches Toward the Isolation and Detection of Exosome Nanovesicles

Exosomes are small-sized extracellular vesicles that are released by many cell types and can be found in different bodily fluids. Exosomes have attracted significant attention over the past decades as they contain biomolecules with a similar profile to their cell of origin that can be used in identifying normal and pathological cell states, such as lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins. Therefore, exosomes are being valued over their diagnostic and therapeutic utilities and their potential as novel drug delivery vehicles. Despite their usefulness, exosomes are approximately 30-200 nm and can vary in contents and compositions, thus making the separation and detection of them extremely challenging. Current exosome isolation and detection techniques are limited by low yield, low purity, requiring cumbersome instruments, and relatively long processing time. However, recent advancements of microfluidics technologies offered new exosome isolation and detection techniques with the great potential to overcome these limitations. Here, we compiled a thorough review that includes latest works on using microfluidic technologies to isolate and detect exosomes in different bodily fluids and comments on their advantages and disadvantages, with the hope to identify future research opportunities and direction in the field.