Lipid membrane anchoring and highly specific fluorescence detection of cancer-derived exosomes based on postfunctionalized zirconium-metal-organic frameworks

Cancer-derived exosomes carry a variety of important biomarkers specific to the formation, invasion and metastasis of tumor tissue. Dynamic monitoring of exosomes originated from cancer cells has clinical significance. Here we proposed a novel method to employ zirconium-metal-organic frameworks (Zr-MOFs) for extracting and identifying exosomes from blood. At first UiO-66 was magnetically modified as the adsorbent to anchor exosomes by forming Zr–O–P bonds. Then UiO-66-NH2 modified with anti-EpCAM was used to construct the fluorescent probe to recognize the extracted EpCAM-positive exosomes by forming a “MOF-exosome-MOF” structure. The proposed fluorescence detection method was evaluated by quantifying MCF-7 cell-derived exosomes at the concentration as low as 16.72 particles/μl. This method was successfully applied to analyze exosomes in the plasma samples from healthy donors and breast cancer patients, demonstrating that our method might have a great potential in assisting the early diagnosis and in dynamically monitoring the efficacy of cancer treatment. We believe that the method could be extended to the detection of other biomarkers in exosomes derived from cancer cell. •The method can simultaneously complete the extraction and detection of exosomes.•The new method based on the sandwich structure showes high specificity and sensitivity.•The method have a potential in assisting the early diagnosis and dynamically monitoring the efficacy of cancer treatment.