Rapid and unbiased enrichment of extracellular vesicles via meticulously engineered peptide

Abstract Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have garnered significant attention in biomedical applications, particularly as biomarkers and therapeutic agents for cancer diagnosis and treatment. However, the rapid, efficient, and unbiased separation of EVs from complex biological fluids remains a challenge due to their heterogeneity and low abundance concentration in biofluids. Herein, we report a novel approach to reconfigure and modify an artificial insertion peptide for the rapid isolation of EVs in 20 min with ∼ 80% recovery. By inserting the peptide into the phospholipid bilayer of EVs, our method enables the unbiased isolation of EVs. Moreover, our approach demonstrates exceptional anti-interference capability and achieves a high purity of EVs comparable to standard ultracentrifugation and other methods. Importantly, we show that the isolated EVs could be directly applied for downstream protein and nucleic acids analyses, including proteomics analysis, exome sequencing analysis, as well as the detection of EGFR and KRAS gene mutation in clinical plasma samples. Our approach offers new possibilities for utilizing EVs in cancer diagnostics through liquid biopsy, as well as in various other biomedical applications.