On the edge of the bubble: Use of exosomes as reference materials in biomedical research

Exosomes are membrane vesicles that are secreted by cells into the surrounding environment to mediate intercellular communication. Because exosomes from diseased individuals can exhibit different molecular profiles from their normal counterparts, they are an attractive target for the development of diagnostic tests. Alternatively, exosomes could be used to develop novel drug delivery systems due to their intrinsic transport function. However, a major drawback for scientists is that isolating a consistent population of exosomes is challenging, and there is a marked lack of exosome standards with confirmed, well-defined characteristics. In this presentation, we provide an overview of exosomes from various well-characterized ATCC cell lines, and show data indicating that these extracellular vesicles can be used as reference materials in biological research and assay development.