Rapid isolation of extracellular vesicles from cell culture and biological fluids using a synthetic peptide with specific affinity for heat shock proteins

Background: Exosomes and extracellular vesicles (EVs) are increasingly recognized as important sources of biomarkers for disease study and diagnosis. Results: A synthetic peptide, Vn96, allows for capture of EVs from biological fluids using basic laboratory equipment. Conclusion: The Vn96-captured EVs are qualitatively equivalent or superior to exosomes isolated by ultracentrifugation. Significance: The Vn96 peptide provides an effective affinity-capture method for the isolation of EVs from biological fluids. Overall design: In order to compare different methods of exosome purification, we compared RNA content of exosomes purified with each method. We used two different breast cancer cell lines MCF7 and MDA-MB-231. We processed data in order to identify large RNAs as well as small RNA by using different methods for the alignment