A Single-Step Immunocapture Assay to Quantify HCC Exosomes Using the Highly Sensitive Fluorescence Nanoparticle-Tracking Analysis

INTRODUCTION: Extracellular vesicles could serve as a non-invasive biomarker for early cancer detection. However, limited methods to quantitate cancer-derived vesicles in the native state remain a significant barrier to clinical translation. AIM: This research aims to develop a rapid, one-step immunoaffinity approach to quantify HCC exosomes directly from a small serum volume. METHODS: HCC-derived exosomes in the serum were captured using fluorescent phycoerythrin (PE)-conjugated antibodies targeted to GPC3 and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Total and HCC-specific exosomes were then quantified in culture supernatant or patient-derived serums using fluorescence nanoparticle tracking analysis (F-NTA). The performance of HCC exosome quantification in the serum was compared with the tumor size determined by MRI. RESULTS: Initially we tested the detection limits of the F-NTA using synthetic fluorescent and non-fluorescent beads. The assay showed an acceptable sensitivity with a detection range of 10(4)–10(8) particles/mL. Additionally, the combination of immunocapture followed by size-exclusion column purification allows the isolation of smaller-size EVs and quantification by F-NTA. Our assay demonstrated that HCC cell culture releases a significantly higher quantity of GPC3 or GPC3+AFP positive EVs (100–200 particles/cell) compared to non-HCC culture (10–40 particles/cell) (p<0.01 and p<0.05 respectively). The F-NTA enables absolute counting of HCC-specific exosomes in the clinical samples with preserved biological immunoreactivity. The performance of F-NTA was clinically validated in serum from patients ± cirrhosis and with confirmed HCC. F-NTA quantification data show selective enrichment of AFP and GPC3 positive EVs in HCC serum compared to malignancy-free cirrhosis (AUC values for GPC3, AFP, and GPC3/AFP were found 0.79, 0.71, and 0.72 respectively). The MRI-confirmed patient cohort indicated that there was a positive correlation between total tumor size and GPC3-positive exosome concentration (r:0.78 and p<0.001). CONCLUSION: We developed an immunocapture assay that can be used for simultaneous isolation and quantification of HCC-derived exosomes from a small serum volume with high accuracy.