Flow cytometry analysis of extracellular vesicles

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid-bound particles that are released by the cells into the extracellular space. However, the nature of EVs being small, make their analysis difficult. Flow cytometry is useful tool for analyzing a sample and its use for analyzing EVs is much desired. To overcome the size limitations, bead-assisted flow cytometry provides a mean for doing so. Yet, direct EV flow cytometry could potentially produce other reliable results that the nature of bead-assisted cannot. In this thesis, we studied four different samples by applying different analysis methods, followed by direct EV flow cytometry to determine whether it is possible to detect them via this method.