Table 2. EVs as potential diagnostic biomarkers of ovarian cancer (2009-2017).

EVs	Source(s)	Disease Type	Marker(s)	Results	Reference
Exosomes	Serum	Serous papillary ovarian adenocarcinoma, benign ovarian adenoma and no evidence of disease	miR-200c miR-214	Tumor exosomes had similar expression of certain miRNAs when compared to the tumor tissue. Expression of miR-200c and miR-214 was not significantly different when compared between stages but was significant when compared to benign disease.	[105]
Exosomes	Plasma	Ovarian cancer patients and healthy volunteers	Claudins (Claudin-4)	Claudins can be identified as part of exosomes shed by ovarian cancer cells in culture. Further, 32 out of 63 ovarian cancer patient plasma contained Claudin-4 positive vesicles compared to 1 out of 50 for healthy volunteers.	[86]
Micro-particles	Blood/ Plasma	Ovarian tumors with unknown histology	Concentration of particles	Concentration of micro-particles was not enough to distinguish between benign and malignant cases. However, patients with ovarian cancer had higher levels of activated platelet-derived micro-particles compared to benign disease patients.	[119]
Exosomes	Ascites	Ovarian cancer patients and portal alcoholic cirrhosis patients.	Proteins	40% of the proteins found in malignant ascites could also be found in exosomes. Exosomes derived from the malignant ascites had increased exosomal cargo.	[120]
Microvesicles	Plasma	Patients with an adnexal mass of unknown etiology	Microvesicle-associated Tissue Factor Procoagulant Activity (MV TF PCA)	Patients with ovarian cancer had an increase in the concentration of MV TF PCA	[121]
Exosomes	Plasma	Malignant and benign ovarian disease	Phosphatidylserine (PS)	PS-expressing exosomes could be used to distinguish patients with ovarian malignancies from patients with no disease.	[122]
Cell Lines
Exosomes	OVCAR-3 and IGROV1 (ovarian cancer cell lines)		Proteins	Proteomic analysis of exosomes derived from the cell lines showed the presence of cell specific proteins implicating a role for exosomes as potential diagnostic biomarkers.	[87]
Exosomes	SKOV-3 and OVM (ovarian cancer cell lines)		LGALS3BP (sialglycoprotein)	LGALS3BP was identified as an Exosomal marker from SKOV-3 ovarian carcinoma cells and N-glycans from the exosomes were characterised.	[123]
Exosomes	OVCAR-3, OVCAR-433, OVCAR-5 and SKOV-3 (epithelial ovarian cancer cell lines)		Proteins	Proteomic analysis of exosomes showed the presence of epithelial ovarian cancer tissue proteins.	[111]
Extracellular vesicles (EVs)	OVMz (ovarian carcinoma cells)		Glycans	The presence of galectin-3-binding protein was noted in the EVs isolated from the OVMz cells and high expression levels of galectin-3-binding protein are associated with shorter survival.	[124]
Exosomes	OVCA429 and HO8910PM (ovarian carcinoma cell lines)		G6PD, transketolase and transaldolase 1	Exosomes from both the cell lines contained G6PD, transketolase and transaldolase 1 which are part of the pentose phosphate pathway and may be diagnostic of late stage cancer.	[114]