The research group in Neurobiology of Dementias of the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau, leaded by Dr. Juan Fortea, designed a detailed protocol for the enrichment of extracellular vesicles derived from astrocytes to from human plasma that will help improve the study of these cells and explore their role in the development of different neurodegenerative diseases.
Astrocytes have very important functions in various neurological processes, so the study of the content of extracellular vesicles derived from these cells could be an interesting platform for the discovery of biomarkers and the exploration of brain inflammatory pathways in a non-invasive way.
The principal investigator of this study, Natalia Valle, explains that the protocol was validated after a detailed analysis of the methods for isolating extracellular vesicles and contextualizing it in the field of neurology, specifically, astrocytes.
Extracellular vesicles are nanoparticles that are naturally secreted by all cells in the body. They contain many cellular components, such as genetic material, proteins, and lipid metabolites that often reflect the contents of their cell of origin. These cells participate in a wide range of functions by acting and transferring their contents to other cells under physiological and pathological conditions.
Given their small size, these vesicles are capable of diffusing into all biological fluids such as plasma and cerebrospinal fluid, from where they can be selected based on the specific surface markers they express, accurately reflecting the specific tissue environment from which they originate. Therefore, they represent an excellent non-invasive diagnostic tool, and can be considered a liquid biopsy for biomarker discovery. This trait is of special interest in neurology.
Currently, one of the main limitations for the use of these vesicles in research is that there is a lack of standardization of methodological protocols for their isolation. The IIB Sant Pau researchers present this new detailed protocol that consists of a first isolation of total extracellular vesicles by means of polymer precipitation, followed by a second step of immunoprecipitation of these vesicles.
Valle-Tamayo, N., Pérez-González, R., Chiva-Blanch, G., Belbin, O., Serrano-Requena, S., Sirisi, S., Cervantes González, A., Giró, O., Sánchez-Aced, É., Dols-Icardo, O., Alcolea, D., Carmona-Iragui, M., Jimenez, A., Lleó, A., Fortea, J., Iulita, M. F. Enrichment of Astrocyte-Derived Extracellular Vesicles from Human Plasma. J. Vis. Exp. (186), e64107, doi:10.3791/64107 (2022).
