A herringbone mixer based microfluidic device HBEXO-chip for purifying tumor-derived exosomes and establishing miRNA signature in pancreatic cancer

Exosomes, which are lipid membrane-enclosed nanovesicles (30−150 nm in diameter), contain abundant proteomic and genetic information. Specifically, tumor-derived exosomes have been recognized as ideal biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. However, effective methods for isolating as well as detecting exosomes are still challenging. Herein, we have developed an immunoaffinity-based microfluidic device HBEXO-Chip which can directly separate exosomes from plasma. This separation technology enables capturing the exosomes through tumor specific surface markers, such as the pancreatic cancer target Glypican-1 employed in this study, to prevent the interference of non-specific exosomes. Compared with the traditional exosomes separation workflow, HBEXO-Chip shows excellent specific exosomes separation performance. We demonstrated that GPC1+ exosomes can distinguish pancreatic cancer from Pancreatitis group and healthy control group. Additionally, we identificate a miRNA signature for pancreatic cancer through RNA sequencing. Finally, we found 2 miRNAs with diagnostic value for pancreatic cancer in these differentially expressed miRNAs, namely miR-125b-5p and miR-214−3p.