Exosome RNA Exosome RNA Research & Industry News
Investigating the molecular composition of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) for tumor diagnostic purposes is becoming increasingly popular, especially for diseases for which diagnosis is challenging, such as central nervous system (CNS) malignancies. Thorough examination of the molecular content of sEVs by Raman spectroscopy is a promising but hitherto barely explored approach for these tumor types. University of Szeged attempt to reveal the potential role of serum-derived sEVs in diagnosing CNS tumors through Raman spectroscopic analyses using a relevant number of clinical samples. A total of 138 serum samples were obtained from four patient groups (glioblastoma multiforme, non-small-cell lung cancer brain metastasis, meningioma and lumbar disc herniation as control). After isolation, characterization and Raman spectroscopic assessment of sEVs, the Principal Component Analysis-Support Vector Machine (PCA-SVM) algorithm was performed on the Raman spectra for pairwise classifications. Classification accuracy (CA), sensitivity, specificity and the Area Under the Curve (AUC) value derived from Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to evaluate the performance of classification. The groups compared were distinguishable with 82.9-92.5% CA, 80-95% sensitivity and 80-90% specificity. AUC scores in the range of 0.82-0.9 suggest excellent and outstanding classification performance. These results support that Raman spectroscopic analysis of sEV-enriched isolates from serum is a promising method that could be further developed in order to be applicable in the diagnosis of CNS tumors.
Workflow of Raman spectroscopic data processing
The figure shows the analysis step by step. After Step 3, the workflow separates (parts A and B) according to the purpose of the analysis. (Abbreviations: AUC, area under the curve; CA, classification accuracy; SNV, standard normal variate; SVM, support-vector machine; PCA, principal component analysis).
