Methods and Technologies for Exosome Isolation and Characterization

Abstract Exosomes, a specific subclass of the extracellular vesicles secreted by most cell types, play an important role in cell–cell communication by transporting diverse content including protein, mRNA, miRNA, and DNA. This cargo is closely associated with the pathogenesis of most human malignancies. Therefore, it is becoming an urgent demand to be able to isolate exosomes in a simple, efficient, and economical way for scientific research and clinical diagnosis. Here, several conventional and novel nano‐based techniques of exosome isolation and characterization are summarized, and the advantages and disadvantages among them are compared, with the hope that researchers will be provided with an overview in this field to detect and isolate exosomes in a suitable manner, matching the subsequent experiments.