Identification of recombinant nanobodies for exosome immunecapture in breast cancer diagnosis

Exosomes are small extra-cellular membrane vesicles (50-150nm) which serve communication between the primary tumor and the metastasis. They are easily accessible in biological fluids and their protein, nucleic acid and metabolite content can be used as a multi-factorial biomarker for the diagnostics of tumors and to predict their response to treatments. The current methods for exosomes isolation are insufficient because co-purify protein aggregates and do not distinguish among exosomes of different origin. The aim of this research project is the development of nanobody-based immunoaffinity capture protocols to purify exosomes from plasma.

Project partners: The project is a collaboration between the University of Gent (Olivier De Wever) and the University of Nova Gorica (Ario de Marco)

Duration of the project: July 2016- June 2020