Research progress of flow cytometry in detection of small extracellular vesicles

Abstract:

Small extracellular vesicles（sEV） are spherical membranous vesicles with lipid bilayer membrane structure and size less than 200 nm，which are secreted by cells actively. sEV are involved in intercellular signal communication and play an important role in the maintenance of normal physiological state and the progression of disease. Flow cytometry has the advantage of being able to directly perform multi-parameter，fast and high-resolution analysis on a large number of cells，but few studies have been applied to detect sEV that are much smaller than cells. In this paper，we review the application of flow cytometry in the detection of sEV reported by several research teams，including the direct detection of sEV by nanoflow cytometry. By conventional flow cytometry assisted by sEV clustering，DNA amplification and microspheres. By mass spectrometry flow cytometry. These methods show the possibility and advantages of flow cytometry in the detection of sEV，but at the same time，they are also faced with problems such as overlapping interference of fluorescence spectrum，and inability to accurately quantify，and still unable to break through size limits，which limit its large-scale research and application. This review is expected to help the academic community better understand the research progress of sEV flow cytometry and further promote the research of sEV.