ArticleThe Analyst2015
Exosomes: improved methods to characterize their morphology, RNA content, and surface protein biomarkers.
Article in The Analyst, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 203 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
203 citing papers in PubMed, 363 citations in OpenAlex.
- Injection of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells exosomes for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: from preclinical to clinical research.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Trial
- Long Non-coding RNA BACE1-AS May Serve as an Alzheimer's Disease Blood-Based Biomarker.Journal of molecular neuroscience : MN · 2019Trial
- Beyond spherical vesicles: morphological diversity of extracellular vesicles in health and disease.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- An engineered exosome-based platform for targeted delivery to endogenous neural stem cells and fate modulation after spinal cord injury.Materials today. Bio · 2026Article
- Comparative Proteomics Analysis of Serum Exosomes Reveals Distinct Infection Profiles and Potential Biomarkers for Pediatric Tuberculosis.Indian pediatrics · 2026Article
- Advances in Extracellular Vesicle-Based Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for Cancer Diagnosis.Biosensors · 2026Review
- Plasma-derived extracellular vesicle microRNA as a potential biomarker associated with disease progression in non-severe dengue infection.Infection · 2026Article
- Do Oxidative Stress-Modified Exosomes Contribute to Infertility in Endometriosis?International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Extracellular Vesicles as Immunomodulatory Mediators in Angiogenic-Osteogenic Coupling: Mechanistic Insights and Therapeutic Potential.Advanced healthcare materials · 2026Review
- Quality Evaluation Considerations for Stem Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles-Based Therapeutic Products in China.Journal of extracellular vesicles · 2026Review
- Proteomic and Super-Resolution Analyses of Murine Brown Adipocyte-Derived Extracellular Vesicles.Journal of extracellular biology · 2026Article
- Exploiting the role of milk extracellular vesicles: a comprehensive analysis on isolation methods, characterization, surface modifications, and their therapeutic applications.Journal of nanobiotechnology · 2026Review
- Advanced lyophilized mesenchymal stem cell-conditioned medium formulation improves therapeutic efficacy in skin wound repair.Regenerative biomaterials · 2026Article
- Advancements in exosome-based cancer diagnosis: from chipsets to nano vaccine.Cancer biology & therapy · 2025Review
- Exosomes in Clinical Laboratory: From Biomarker Discovery to Diagnostic Implementation.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Review
- Therapeutic extracellular vesicles as a cornerstone of medicine in the next decade with gerontological focus.Biogerontology · 2025Review
- Fluorescence Characterization of Extracellular Vesicles Using Single-Molecule Confocal Microscopy.Small methods · 2025Article
- Extracellular vesicle-based drug overview: research landscape, quality control and nonclinical evaluation strategies.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2025Review
- Extracellular Vesicles in cancer: from isolation and characterization to metastasis, drug resistance, and clinical applications.BMC cancer · 2025Review
- Encapsulation of Small Extracellular Vesicles into Selectively Disassemblable Shells of PEGylated Metal-Phenolic Networks.Advanced healthcare materials · 2025Article
143 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
As a type of secreted membrane vesicle, exosomes are an emerging mode of cell-to-cell communication. Yet as exosome samples are commonly contaminated with other extracellular vesicles, the biological roles of exosomes in regulating immunity and promoting oncogenesis remain controversial. Wondering whether existing methods could distort our view of exosome biology, we compared two direct methods for imaging extracellular vesicles and quantified the impact of different production and storage conditions on the quality of exosome samples. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was compared to transmission electron microscopy (TEM) as alternatives to examine the morphology of exosomes. Using SEM, we were able to distinguish exosomes from other contaminating extracellular vesicles based on the size distribution. More importantly, freezing of samples prior to SEM imaging made it more difficult to distinguish exosomes from extracellular vesicles secreted during cell death. In addition to morphology, the quality of RNA contained within the exosomes was characterized under different storage conditions, where freezing of samples also degraded RNA. Finally, we developed a new flow cytometry approach to assay transmembrane proteins on exosomes. While high-copy-number proteins could be readily detected, detecting low-copy-number proteins was improved using a lipophilic tracer that clustered exosomes. To illustrate this, we observed that exosomes derived from SKBR3 cells, a cell model for human HER2+ breast cancer, contained both HER1 and HER2 but at different levels of abundance. Collectively, these new methods will help to ensure a consistent framework to identify specific roles that exosomes play in regulating cell-to-cell communication.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.