Current progress and prospect of microfluidic-based exosome investigation

Exosomes, nanoscale extracellular vesicles (≈30–150 nm diameter), are released by a variety of cells and packaged with substantial information from origin cells for intercellular communication. Since exosomes are of tremendous impact in the occurrence, progression, treatment and prognostic assessment of diverse diseases, it has attracted much attention for their efficient isolation, precise analysis and biological applications. Nevertheless, exosomes are highly heterogeneous and often co-exist with multiple components in biofluids. Thus, it remains challenging to separate exosomes efficiently with high purity and structural integrity for downstream analysis and application. Recently, microfluidic chips have been demonstrated superior performance in capturing and analyzing exosomes. In this review, we will first discuss recent advances of microfluidic systems for isolating and identifying exosomes, and then present developments in quantitative analysis, molecular analysis and on-chip engineering of exosomes. Finally, we propose the prospects of high-performance and comprehensive microfluidic platforms for exosome-related in-depth research.