Table 1.

Exosomes in common malignant tumors

Applications	No. of patients	Source	Volume of body fluid	Targets	Exosome extraction	Extraction method	Detection method	References
Early diagnosis
Pancreatic cancer	263	Plasma	0.9–1.5 ml	KRAS	Ultracentrifugation	MagAttract High Molecular Weight DNA kit	ddPCR	29
	221	Serum	250 μl	GPC1	Ultracentrifugation + sucrose gradient centrifugation	Affinity capture	Flow cytometry analysis	34
	85	Serum	–	CKAP4	PS Capture Exosome ELISA Kit	PS Capture Exosome ELISA Kit	PS Capture Exosome ELISA Kit	170
Colorectal cancer	140	Serum	300 μl	lncRNA	Ultracentrifugation	TRIzol	qPCR	36
	40	Serum	250 μl	miRNA	ExoQuick-TC™ Exosome Precipitation Solution kit	miRNeasy Serum/Plasma kit	qRT–PCR	160
	102	Tissue homogenate	–	GPC1	ExoCapTM Exosome Isolation, Enrichment kit	Affinity capture	Flow cytometry analysis	35
		Plasma		miR‐96‐5p, miR‐149		TRIzol	qPCR
	116	Serum	250 μl	CEA	ExoQuickTM Exosome Precipitation Solution	ELISA	ELISA	171
	124	Plasma	500 μl	Copine III	Ultracentrifugation	PIPA buffer	ELISA	24
Lung cancer	210	Plasma	1–2 ml	EGFR T790M	Ultracentrifugation	ExoLution Plus platform	Allele-specific qPCR assay	38
	105	Plasma	–	miRNAs	Ultracentrifugation	mirVanaTM miRNA Isolation Kit	qPCR	172
		BALF
	581	Plasma	–	Proteins	Extracellular vesicle array	Extracellular vesicle array	Extracellular vesicle array	39
	171	Serum	–	Proteins	Ultracentrifugation	Lysis buffer	Immunoblotting	173
Breast cancer	32	Plasma	250 μl	miR-21, miR-1246	Exoquick-TCTM reagent	TRIzol	qRT–PCR	174
	38	Serum	–	miR-105	Ultracentrifugation	TRIzol	qRT–PCR	175
	240	Serum or Plasma	500 μl	CD82	ExoQuickTM exosome precipitation solution	Strong RIPA lysate	ELISA/western blot	176
	44	Plasma	5.5 ml	Phosphoproteins	Ultracentrifugation	–	LC-MS/MS	40
Renal cell carcinoma	52	Urine	–	Proteins	Differential centrifugation + density gradient ultracentrifugation/ultrafiltration	–	LC-MS/MS	44
Bladder cancer	69	Urine	38.5 ml	miRNAs	Differential centrifugation	miRNeasy Mini Kit/RNA MS2/Clean-up Kit	miRNA microarray	45
Cholangio-carcinoma	134	Serum	1 ml	Proteins	Ultracentrifugation	–	MS	177
Prognosis
Pancreatic cancer	194	Plasma	15 ml	KRAS	Ultracentrifugation	QIAmp Circulating Nucleic Acid Kit	ddPCR	32
	91	Serum	250 μl	PD-L1, c-MET	Invitrogen Total Exosome Isolation Reagent	–	Flow cytometry	54
Colorectal cancer	255	Serum	1 ml	miR-19a	Ultracentrifugation/Total Exosome Isolation Kit	miRNeasy mini kit	qRT–PCR	178
	28	Serum	1 ml	miR-17-5p, miR-92a-3p	qEV Size Exclusion Columns	HiPure Liquid RNA, miRNA Kit	qRT–PCR	60
	108	Serum	100 μl–1 ml	miR‐548c‐5p	Invitrogen™ Total Exosome Isolation Kit	miRNeasy mini kit	qPCR	61
	93	Plasma	500 μl /1 ml	miR-141-3p miR-375	ExiqonTM miRCURY Exosome Isolation Kit	ExiqonTM miRCURY RNA Isolation Kit	qPCR	57
	87	Serum	–	miR-25-3p	Ultracentrifugation	TRIzol	qPCR	56
Lung cancer	106	Serum	up to 4 ml	FLI1 exonic circular RNAs	ExoEasy Maxi Kit	TRIzol	qRT–PCR	50
	276	Plasma	10 μl	NY‐ESO‐1	Extracellular Vesicle Array	Extracellular Vesicle Array	Extracellular Vesicle Array	179
	85	Serum	4 ml	PD-L1	Invitrogen™ Total Exosome Isolation Kit	RIPA	ELISA	53
	20	Plasma	5 ml	Amphiregulin	Ultracentrifugation	–	ELISA	180
Head and neck cancer	40	Plasma	1 ml	PD-L1	Mini size exclusion chromatography	–	Flow cytometry	52
Breast cancer	53	Serum	5 ml	miR-222	Density gradient centrifugation	Maxwell® 16 miRNA Tissue kit	qPCR	181
Melanoma	56	Serum	200 μl	miRNA-125b	ExoQuickTM precipitation solution	TRIzol	qPCR	155
	96	Serum	250 μl	S100B, MIA	ExoQuickTM precipitation solution	–	Immuno assays	182
Esophageal carcinoma	602	Saliva	3–5 ml	Transcriptionally induced chimeric RNAs	ExoQuick™ exosomes precipitation solution	TRIzol	qRT–PCR	183
Prostate cancer	13	Urine	5 ml	ITGA3, ITGB1	Ultracentrifugation	Lysis buffer	Western blot	51
Treatment response
Lung cancer	84	Plasma	3 ml	EGFR (RNA)	ExoLution™ Plus	ExoLution™ Plus	NGS	41
	50	Serum	–	miR-222-3p	Ultracentrifugation	RNeasy Kit	PCR	64
Breast cancer	53	Serum	5 ml	miR-21	Density gradient centrifugation	Maxwell® 16 miRNA Tissue kit	qPCR	181
Melanoma	–	Plasma	1 ml	PD-L1	Ultracentrifugation + exosome isolation kit	Reverse phase protein array	Reverse phase protein array	72

Recent clinical studies on exosomes as biomarkers for early diagnosis, prognosis and treatment response monitoring of cancers, including cohort scale, source of body fluid, functional targets of exosomes, exosome extraction methods, target isolation and detection methods