SCIENCE

Craif has developed a simple and effective method for exosome
enrichment using nano-fabrication technology

INTERPRETING CELLULAR
COMMUNICATIONS BY CAPTURING EXOSOMES

Extracellular vesicles, including exosomes and incorporated microRNAs(miRNAs), are recently attracting attention for its close connection with diseases and their pathology. However, miRNA concentrations tend to be low and effective methods to extract them did not exist in the past. The solution? Our nanowire microfluid device— capable of extracting urinal exosomes efficiently with a simple procedure.

OUR PLATFORM

PERFORMANCE

Identification of cancer-specific microRNA profiles in urine

Cancer cells need to communicate with other cells to survive by secreting exosomes that contain various proteins, mRNAs, and miRNAs. Communications between cancer and its microenvironment, including stromal and distant cells, can promote tumor growth, metastasis, and escape from immune surveillance. By capturing exosomes comprehensively, we can understand not only the characteristics of the cancer cells, but also its microenvironment reflecting the host response to the disease. To put it simply, we can catch a glimpse of the cancer-host conversations from the extracted exosomes. It is through this means that we can detect cancer even in a very early stage, in which cancer tissue is not large enough to be detected by other approaches such as CTC and cfDNA analysis. By measuring urinal microRNA from exosome extracted by this device and analyzing the samples using machine learning algorithms, we sucessfully developed an algorithm to distinguish cancer from non-cancer samples with high sensitivity and specificity in two cancer types (lung cancer, brain tumor).

PUBLICATIONS