Extracellular vesicles and their detection with plasmonic bionsensors for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecological cancer, due to its late diagnosis resulting in unsuccessful treatment. An earlier diagnosis at a stage, when the disease is still treatable, would improve the chances of survival immensely. To achieve such an early diagnosis extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been proposed as a new class of biomarkers, but the currently used methods for their isolation and analysis lack in specificity and sensitivity. Hence this project aimed to identify new EV-based biomarkers for an improved diagnosis of ovarian cancer by usage of lipid-binding proteins for EV isolation and to develop new highly sensitive biosensors for EV detection based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR). We achieved our aim by identifying a subpopulation of EVs that carries a distinct lipid and protein composition as candidate biomarker for ovarian cancer and will validate its value for clinical application in subsequent studies. Furthermore, we developed a plasmonic biosensor platform that was capable of detecting trace amounts of EVs by making use of magnetic nanoparticles for signal enhancement. The specific detection of cancer-derived EVs with this sensing platform will be studied in future. Doctor of Philosophy