Extracellular Vesicles and Their Potential Use in Monitoring Cancer Progression and Therapy: The Contribution of Proteomics

Figure 3

An example of workflow for biomarker discovery process based on purification and proteomics characterization of EVs isolated from various biological samples. After vesicles lysis, protein digestion is performed to separate the peptides that are analyzed through proteomics strategies. High resolution LC-MS instruments allow obtaining a protein list that can be identified and quantified by powerful bioinformatics software. Finally functional enrichment analysis identifies local networks and potential biomarkers. EVs, Extracellular Vesicles; LC-MS/MS, liquid chromatography coupled with online tandem mass spectrometry.