Table 1.

Liquid biopsy analytes: features, extractable information, and clinical applications as biomarkers. Table adapted from [19].

Traits	Liquid Biopsy Analyte
	CTCs 1	ctDNA 2	Exosomes	ctRNA 3	miRNA
Origin
Viable cells	✔ 4	✖ 5	✔	? 6	?
Apoptotic cells	✔	✔	?	?	?
Components
DNA	✔	✔	✔	N.A. 7	N.A.
RNA	✔	N.A.	✔	✔	✔
Proteins	✔	N.A.	✔	N.A.	N.A.
Metabolites	✔	N.A.	?	N.A.	N.A.
Extractable information
Copy number variation	✔	✔	✔	✖	✖
Mutations	✔	✔	✔	✔	✖
Epigenetic information	✔	✔	✔	✖	✖
Fusion genes	✔	✔	✔	✔	✖
Splice variants	✔	✖	✔	✔	✖
Single-cell information	✔	✖	✖	✖	✖
Application in personalized medicine
Diagnosis	✔	✔ 8	✔	?	✔
Classification of molecular subtypes	✔	✔	?	?	✖
Clonal evolution tracking	✔	✔	?	✖	✖
Prognosis	✔	✔	✔	?	✔
Recurrence	✔	✔	✔	✔	✖
Predictive	✔	✔	✔	?	✖
Resistance prediction	✔	✔	✔	?	✖
Monitoring treatment	✔	✔	✔	?	?

¹ Circulating tumor cell; ² circulating tumor DNA; ³ circulating tumor RNA; ⁴ yes; ⁵ no; ⁶ no data; ⁷ not applicable; ⁸ most probably.