New York, Aug 15 : US scientists have developed a contact lens which could aid in the detection of cancer through tears and aid in the treatment.The lens, which was developed by a team from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) in California, is able to detect and identify exosomes, which are tiny vesicles that are found in the body’s secretions, which could be biomarkers that can be used to diagnose cancer.
The lens was created with microchambers bonded to antibodies that can bind exosomes that are found in tears.The antibody-conjugated signalling microchamber lens (ACSM-CL) can be stained with specific antibodies that are nanoparticle-tagged for the purpose of focusing on specific images.
This could be a opportunity to develop a cancer pre-screening platform and a diagnostic tool that supports that is quick, easy efficient, sensitive, cost-effective and non-invasive.
Exosomes are created within many cells and then absorbed into various bodily fluids like saliva, plasma, tears, and urine.
Once believed to be the dumping areas for unwanted substances that were absorbed from the cells of origin It is now understood that exosomes are able to transport various biomolecules between cells.
However the TIBI team developed their ACSM-CL method to capture exosomes in tears, which is a better and more efficient source of exosomes, rather than urine, blood, and saliva.
“Exosomes are a significant source of biomolecules and markers that can be targeted for a variety of biomedical purposes,” said Ali Khademhosseini Director and CEO of TIBI.
“The methodology that we have devised greatly enhances our ability to draw this resource.”
In the first validation experiment the ACSM-CL was compared against exosomes that were secreted into supernatants derived from 10 different cancerous and tissue cell lines.The capability to detect and capture exosomes was confirmed by the spectroscopic shifts seen in all sample samples tested, in comparison with the negative controls.
Similar results were found when the ACSM-CL was compared against the ten different tear samples that were collected from volunteers.
In the final experiment exosomes in supernatants from three cell lines with different expression of markers on the surface were compared against the ACSM-CL along with diverse combinations of specific markers-specific detection antibodies.
The patterns of detection and non-detection of exosomes derived from three cell lines were in line with the expected, thus confirming the ACSM-CL’s capability to accurately detect and capture exosomes with different surface markers.
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