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Di Santo R, Niccolini B, Romanò S, Vaccaro M, Di Giacinto F, De Spirito M, Ciasca G. Advancements in Mid-Infrared spectroscopy of extracellular vesicles. SPECTROCHIMICA ACTA. PART A, MOLECULAR AND BIOMOLECULAR SPECTROSCOPY 2024; 305:123346. [PMID: 37774583 DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2023.123346] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2023] [Revised: 08/07/2023] [Accepted: 09/02/2023] [Indexed: 10/01/2023]
Abstract
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid vesicles secreted by all cells into the extracellular space and act as nanosized biological messengers among cells. They carry a specific molecular cargo, composed of lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates, which reflects the state of their parent cells. Due to their remarkable structural and compositional heterogeneity, characterizing EVs, particularly from a biochemical perspective, presents complex challenges. In this context, mid-infrared (IR) spectroscopy is emerging as a valuable tool, providing researchers with a comprehensive and label-free spectral fingerprint of EVs in terms of their specific molecular content. This review aims to provide an up-to-date critical overview of the major advancements in mid-IR spectroscopy of extracellular vesicles, encompassing both fundamental and applied research achievements. We also systematically emphasize the new possibilities offered by the integration of emerging cutting-edge IR technologies, such as tip-enhanced and surface-enhanced spectroscopy approaches, along with the growing use of machine learning for data analysis and spectral interpretation. Additionally, to assist researchers in navigating this intricate subject, our manuscript includes a wide and detailed collection of the spectral peaks that have been assigned to EV molecular constituents up to now in the literature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Riccardo Di Santo
- Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy; Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli" IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy.
| | - Benedetta Niccolini
- Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy
| | - Sabrina Romanò
- Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy
| | - Maria Vaccaro
- Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli" IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy
| | - Flavio Di Giacinto
- Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy; Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli" IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy
| | - Marco De Spirito
- Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy; Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli" IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy
| | - Gabriele Ciasca
- Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy; Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli" IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy
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The Convergence of FTIR and EVs: Emergence Strategy for Non-Invasive Cancer Markers Discovery. Diagnostics (Basel) 2022; 13:diagnostics13010022. [PMID: 36611313 PMCID: PMC9818376 DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics13010022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2022] [Revised: 12/01/2022] [Accepted: 12/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
In conjunction with imaging analysis, pathology-based assessments of biopsied tissue are the gold standard for diagnosing solid tumors. However, the disadvantages of tissue biopsies, such as being invasive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, have urged the development of an alternate method, liquid biopsy, that involves sampling and clinical assessment of various bodily fluids for cancer diagnosis. Meanwhile, extracellular vesicles (EVs) are circulating biomarkers that carry molecular profiles of their cell or tissue origins and have emerged as one of the most promising biomarkers for cancer. Owing to the biological information that can be obtained through EVs' membrane surface markers and their cargo loaded with biomolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids, EVs have become useful in cancer diagnosis and therapeutic applications. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) allows rapid, non-destructive, label-free molecular profiling of EVs with minimal sample preparation. Since the heterogeneity of EV subpopulations may result in complicated FTIR spectra that are highly diverse, computational-assisted FTIR spectroscopy is employed in many studies to provide fingerprint spectra of malignant and non-malignant samples, allowing classification with high accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity. In view of this, FTIR-EV approach carries a great potential in cancer detection. The progression of FTIR-based biomarker identification in EV research, the rationale of the integration of a computationally assisted approach, along with the challenges of clinical translation are the focus of this review.
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Temperini ME, Di Giacinto F, Romanò S, Di Santo R, Augello A, Polito R, Baldassarre L, Giliberti V, Papi M, Basile U, Niccolini B, Krasnowska EK, Serafino A, De Spirito M, Di Gaspare A, Ortolani M, Ciasca G. Antenna-enhanced mid-infrared detection of extracellular vesicles derived from human cancer cell cultures. J Nanobiotechnology 2022; 20:530. [PMID: 36514065 PMCID: PMC9746222 DOI: 10.1186/s12951-022-01693-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2022] [Accepted: 10/30/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) are sub-micrometer lipid-bound particles released by most cell types. They are considered a promising source of cancer biomarkers for liquid biopsy and personalized medicine due to their specific molecular cargo, which provides biochemical information on the state of parent cells. Despite this potential, EVs translation process in the diagnostic practice is still at its birth, and the development of novel medical devices for their detection and characterization is highly required. RESULTS In this study, we demonstrate mid-infrared plasmonic nanoantenna arrays designed to detect, in the liquid and dry phase, the specific vibrational absorption signal of EVs simultaneously with the unspecific refractive index sensing signal. For this purpose, EVs are immobilized on the gold nanoantenna surface by immunocapture, allowing us to select specific EV sub-populations and get rid of contaminants. A wet sample-handling technique relying on hydrophobicity contrast enables effortless reflectance measurements with a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectro-microscope in the wavelength range between 10 and 3 µm. In a proof-of-principle experiment carried out on EVs released from human colorectal adenocarcinoma (CRC) cells, the protein absorption bands (amide-I and amide-II between 5.9 and 6.4 µm) increase sharply within minutes when the EV solution is introduced in the fluidic chamber, indicating sensitivity to the EV proteins. A refractive index sensing curve is simultaneously provided by our sensor in the form of the redshift of a sharp spectral edge at wavelengths around 5 µm, where no vibrational absorption of organic molecules takes place: this permits to extract of the dynamics of EV capture by antibodies from the overall molecular layer deposition dynamics, which is typically measured by commercial surface plasmon resonance sensors. Additionally, the described metasurface is exploited to compare the spectral response of EVs derived from cancer cells with increasing invasiveness and metastatic potential, suggesting that the average secondary structure content in EVs can be correlated with cell malignancy. CONCLUSIONS Thanks to the high protein sensitivity and the possibility to work with small sample volumes-two key features for ultrasensitive detection of extracellular vesicles- our lab-on-chip can positively impact the development of novel laboratory medicine methods for the molecular characterization of EVs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Eleonora Temperini
- grid.7841.aDepartment of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy ,grid.25786.3e0000 0004 1764 2907Center for Life Neuro and Nano Sciences IIT@Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
| | - Flavio Di Giacinto
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy ,grid.8142.f0000 0001 0941 3192Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
| | - Sabrina Romanò
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy ,grid.8142.f0000 0001 0941 3192Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
| | - Riccardo Di Santo
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy
| | - Alberto Augello
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy
| | - Raffaella Polito
- grid.7841.aDepartment of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Leonetta Baldassarre
- grid.7841.aDepartment of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Valeria Giliberti
- grid.25786.3e0000 0004 1764 2907Center for Life Neuro and Nano Sciences IIT@Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
| | - Massimiliano Papi
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy ,grid.8142.f0000 0001 0941 3192Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
| | - Umberto Basile
- grid.414603.4Dipartimento di Scienze di Laboratorio e Infettivologiche, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli” IRCCS, 00168 Rome, Italy
| | - Benedetta Niccolini
- grid.8142.f0000 0001 0941 3192Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
| | - Ewa K. Krasnowska
- grid.5326.20000 0001 1940 4177Institute of Translational Pharmacology, National Research Council of Italy, Rome, Italy
| | - Annalucia Serafino
- grid.5326.20000 0001 1940 4177Institute of Translational Pharmacology, National Research Council of Italy, Rome, Italy
| | - Marco De Spirito
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy ,grid.8142.f0000 0001 0941 3192Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
| | - Alessandra Di Gaspare
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy ,grid.509494.5NEST, CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze and Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza San Silvestro 12, 56127 Pisa, Italy
| | - Michele Ortolani
- grid.7841.aDepartment of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy ,grid.25786.3e0000 0004 1764 2907Center for Life Neuro and Nano Sciences IIT@Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
| | - Gabriele Ciasca
- grid.414603.4Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli”, IRCCS, Rome, Italy ,grid.8142.f0000 0001 0941 3192Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
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Imanbekova M, Suarasan S, Lu Y, Jurchuk S, Wachsmann-Hogiu S. Recent advances in optical label-free characterization of extracellular vesicles. NANOPHOTONICS 2022; 11:2827-2863. [PMID: 35880114 PMCID: PMC9128385 DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2022-0057] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2022] [Accepted: 03/16/2022] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are complex biological nanoparticles endogenously secreted by all eukaryotic cells. EVs carry a specific molecular cargo of proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids derived from cells of origin and play a significant role in the physiology and pathology of cells, organs, and organisms. Upon release, they may be found in different body fluids that can be easily accessed via noninvasive methodologies. Due to the unique information encoded in their molecular cargo, they may reflect the state of the parent cell and therefore EVs are recognized as a rich source of biomarkers for early diagnostics involving liquid biopsy. However, body fluids contain a mixture of EVs released by different types of healthy and diseased cells, making the detection of the EVs of interest very challenging. Recent research efforts have been focused on the detection and characterization of diagnostically relevant subpopulations of EVs, with emphasis on label-free methods that simplify sample preparation and are free of interfering signals. Therefore, in this paper, we review the recent progress of the label-free optical methods employed for the detection, counting, and morphological and chemical characterization of EVs. We will first briefly discuss the biology and functions of EVs, and then introduce different optical label-free techniques for rapid, precise, and nondestructive characterization of EVs such as nanoparticle tracking analysis, dynamic light scattering, atomic force microscopy, surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and SERS spectroscopy. In the end, we will discuss their applications in the detection of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer and provide an outlook on the future impact and challenges of these technologies to the field of liquid biopsy via EVs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meruyert Imanbekova
- Bioengineering, McGill University Faculty of Engineering, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Sorina Suarasan
- Nanobiophotonics and Laser Microspectroscopy Center, Interdisciplinary Research Institute in Bio-Nano-Sciences, Babes-Bolyai University, T. Laurian 42, 400271, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
| | - Yao Lu
- Bioengineering, McGill University Faculty of Engineering, 3480 Rue Universite, 1006, Montreal, QC, H3C6W1, Canada
| | - Sarah Jurchuk
- Bioengineering, McGill University Faculty of Engineering, 3480 Rue Universite, Rm#350, Montreal, QC, H3A 0E9, Canada
| | - Sebastian Wachsmann-Hogiu
- Bioengineering, McGill University Faculty of Engineering, 3480 University St., MC362, Montreal, H3A 0E9l, Canada
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Romanò S, Di Giacinto F, Primiano A, Gervasoni J, Mazzini A, Papi M, Urbani A, Serafino A, De Spirito M, Krasnowska EK, Ciasca G. Label-free spectroscopic characterization of exosomes reveals cancer cell differentiation. Anal Chim Acta 2022; 1192:339359. [DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2021.339359] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2021] [Revised: 11/05/2021] [Accepted: 11/06/2021] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
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Abrego-Martinez JC, Jafari M, Chergui S, Pavel C, Che D, Siaj M. Aptamer-based electrochemical biosensor for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2: Nanoscale electrode-aptamer-SARS-CoV-2 imaging by photo-induced force microscopy. Biosens Bioelectron 2022; 195:113595. [PMID: 34571481 PMCID: PMC8405239 DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2021.113595] [Citation(s) in RCA: 80] [Impact Index Per Article: 40.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2021] [Revised: 08/15/2021] [Accepted: 08/25/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Rapid, mass diagnosis of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is critical to stop the ongoing infection spread. The two standard screening methods to confirm the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are polymerase chain reaction (PCR), through the RNA of the virus, and serology by detecting antibodies produced as a response to the viral infection. However, given the detection complexity, cost and relatively long analysis times of these techniques, novel technologies are urgently needed. Here, we report an aptamer-based biosensor developed on a screen-printed carbon electrode platform for rapid, sensitive, and user-friendly detection of SARS-CoV-2. The aptasensor relies on an aptamer targeting the receptor-binding domain (RBD) in the spike protein (S-protein) of the SARS-CoV-2. The aptamer immobilization on gold nanoparticles, and the presence of S-protein in the aptamer-target complex, investigated for the first time by photo-induced force microscopy mapping between 770 and 1910 cm−1 of the electromagnetic spectrum, revealed abundant S-protein homogeneously distributed on the sensing probe. The detection of SARS-CoV-2 S-protein was achieved by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy after 40 min incubation with several analyte concentrations, yielding a limit of detection of 1.30 pM (66 pg/mL). Moreover, the aptasensor was successfully applied for the detection of a SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus, thus suggesting it is a promising tool for the diagnosis of COVID-19.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Maziar Jafari
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Université Du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada
| | - Siham Chergui
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Université Du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada
| | - Catalin Pavel
- Azure Biosystems Canada, Montréal, QC, H4P 2N5, Canada
| | - Diping Che
- Azure Biosystems Canada, Montréal, QC, H4P 2N5, Canada
| | - Mohamed Siaj
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Université Du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada.
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