Table 2.

Proposed classification of exosome isolation methods based on their main principle. Advantages and disadvantages are highlighted after each method. Grouped rows indicate the most commonly associated techniques. Feasibility of the different potential applications depending on the isolation method are also identified

				Applications
Method	Type	Advantages	Disadvantages	Nucleic acid quantification and sequencing	Biomarker screening	Protein quantification and identification	Drug delivery systems
Centrifugation	Physical	Simple protocols Preservation of physicochemical properties	Low purity Specialized equipment required	✓	✓	✗	✓
Ultrafiltration	Physical	Fast protocols Cheap materials High protein and RNA yield	Low purity Exosome deformation and extrusion	✓	✓	✗	✗
Precipitation	Physicochemical	Highly reproducible High vesicle and RNA yields Requires only lab‐bench equipment	Low purity Exosome aggregation	✓	✓	✗	✗
Chromatography	Physicochemical	High exosome purity yields Preservation of physicochemical properties	Medium to high processing times Exosome degradation due to selected operation buffers	✓	✓	✓	✓
Microfluidics	Physical	Miniaturization Device functionalization Short analysis times	Low reproducibility Low exosomal yields Exosome aggregation	✓	✓	✓	✓
Immunocapture	Chemical	High specificity High purity Potential scalability	Expensive materials Low exosomal and RNA yields	✓	✗	✓	✗