Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small, membrane-bound particles continuously released by living cells throughout their lifespan. They carry not just DNA, but also RNA, proteins, glycans, metabolites, and lipids all of which are protected from enzymatic degradation in biofluids by their lipid bilayer. Importantly, the contents of EVs are not exported randomly; they reflect the health status of their parental cells and are enriched with bioactive components involved in critical cellular functions. EVs serve as convenient 'windows' into cellular processes, generally transmitting specific intercellular messages regionally and across organs.
It is important to emphasise that dynamic biopsy requires organ- / tissue-specific EV analysis in biofluids, not bulk EV analysis, which primarily contains information from blood cells, creating excessive noise that hampers accurate analysis. This means the EVs must be sourced from specific organs or tissues (e.g., the liver or lungs), providing a targeted and accurate view of the disease process occurring in those tissues. This near-real-time, multi-omics approach enables clinicians to distinguish and monitor dynamic processes such as cell signalling, protein interactions, and metabolic activity – key drivers of disease evolution.
Mursla Bio pioneered three EV technologies to achieve optimal clinical outcomes: (i) Organ-specific EV isolation, (ii) AI-enabled multi-omics biomarker discovery from EV cargo, (iii) Scalable EV multi-omics assays for clinical use.
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(iii) Scalable assay platform using optimal EV-based biomarkers for clinical use (NEXOS)
Tomás Dias, Ricardo Figueiras, Susana Vagueiro, Renato Domingues, Yu-Hsien Hung, Jagriti Sethi, Elnaz Persia, Pierre Arsène.
Cell Press iScience, Volume 27 Issue 6, 109866 (2024)
MISEV Organizing Committee, MISEV Consortium including Pierre Arsène.
Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, e12404 (2024)
Targeted capture of hepatocyte-derived extracellular vesicles from plasma and subsequent multi-omic analysis reveals potential diagnostic markers of hepatocellular carcinoma
Ricardo Figueiras, Susana Vagueiro, Gillian Reynolds, Elnaz Persia, Raissa Kay, Tomás Dias.
2023 International Society for Extracellular Vesicles, poster number: PF09.09 (2023)
High-yield immunomagnetic isolation of EV sub-populations for downstream applications
Susana Vagueiro, Ricardo Figueiras, Elnaz Persia, Tomás Dias.
2023 International Society for Extracellular Vesicles oral presentation: LB3.7 (2023)
Tetraspanins distinguish separate extracellular vesicle subpopulations in human serum and plasma – Contributions of platelet extracellular vesicles in plasma samples
Nasibeh Karimi, Razieh Dalirfardouei, Tomás Dias, Jan Lötvall, Cecilia Lässer. Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, e12213 (2022)