Early cancer detection based on exosome biosensors in biological samples

Produced by all cells and found in all body fluids, exosomes differ in their content such as lipid, nucleic acid and protein that can facilitate tumor growth. Exosomes, which carry particular genetic signals and provide a gene expression profile specific to cancer cells, offer the opportunity to be used as biomarkers for the early diagnosis and prognosis of cancer. Another advantage of exosomes is that they can be detected in biofluids such as saliva, urine, blood, and peritoneal fluid; therefore, using exosomes as biomarkers may eliminate the need for cancer tissue biopsies, which poses several challenges. All these reasons necessitate the application and development of exosome biosensors. In this review, approaches developed and applied methods for exosome detection are discussed. In order to improve exosome detection, the advantages and/or limitations of these approaches have been evaluated.