None of us is the same as all of us: Resolving the heterogeneity of extracellular vesicles using single-vesicle, nanoscale characterization with resonance enhanced atomic force microscope infrared spectroscopy (AFM-IR)

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are highly specialized, nanoscale messengers that deliver biological signals and in doing so mediate intercellular communication. Increasing evidence shows that within populations of EVs, important properties including morphology, membrane composition, and content vary substantially. This heterogeneity arises in response to the nature, state, and environmental conditions of the cell source. However, currently there are no effective approaches, which unequivocally discriminate differences between individual EVs, which critically hampers progress in this emerging scientific area. Measuring EV heterogeneity is paramount to our understanding of how EVs influence the ..