All solutions must be prepared using ultrapure water and analytical grade reagents.
Processing of Conditioned Culture Media following Tissue or Cell Culture
1. Amicon Ultra centrifugal filters, 10 kDa or 100 kDa MWCO, Millipore.
2. For all serum-containing culture media preparations, exosome-depleted serum (e.g., fetal bovine serum (A2720801, ThermoFisher Scientific) must be used.
Isolation of Extracellular Vesicles and Non-Vesicular Extracellular Particles
Size Exclusion Chromatography to Isolate Extracellular Vesicles
1. Tissue or cell conditioned culture media ( 500 µL neat or concentrated
to 500µL using Amicon filters).
2. Izon qEV (35 nm) size exclusion chromatography columns (Original
Column Gen 2).
3. Izon Automatic Fraction Collector (AFC).
4. 1X Phosphate buffered saline (1X PBS).
5. Disposable plastic 10 mL pipettes.
6. Pipette boy.
7. 1.5 mL Eppendorf tubes.
Differential Ultracentrifugation to Isolate Extracellular Vesicles and Non-Vesicular Extracellular Particles
1. Tissue or cell culture conditioned media, concentrated to 5 mL using
Amicon filters.
2. 15 mL centrifuge tubes.
3. Eppendorf 5810R 15 Amp refrigerated benchtop centrifuge 5811F with
A-4-81 Rotor.
4. Beckman Optima L-90K ultracentrifuge with a SW 55 Ti rotor.
5. 5 mL, sterile + certified free open-top thin wall ultra-clear tube, 13 x 51
mm, Beckman Coulter.
6. PBS-HEPES (PBS-H, 25 mM) (stored at 4°C)
Characterization of Extracellular Vesicles and Non-Vesicular Extracellular Particles
Vesicle Flow Cytometry to Characterize Extracellular Vesicles in Conditioned Culture Media
1. Neat, unconcentrated tissue or cell culture conditioned culture media.
2. Beckman Coulter Cytoflex S flow cytometer, calibrated.
3. V-bottom or U-bottom 96-well plate.
4. vFC staining/dilution buffer.
5. 10X vFRed working solution: vFRed is a membrane stain which can
stain the lipid bilayer membrane of the EVs. The stock solution of vFRed is 100X and should be diluted to 10X by mixing 1 part of vFRed to 9 parts of vFRed dilution buffer (Cellarcus Biosciences).
6. 1000 µL, 200 µL, and 20 µL multichannel pipettes.
7. Barrier 1000 µL, 200 µL, and 20 µL tips.
8. One-time use reagent reservoirs.
9. Sheath fluid: milliQ water (or equivalent).
10. Coulter-cleanse cleaning solution (Beckman Coulter).
11. Fluorescently labelled antibodies: CD9-PEDazzle, CD63-PE and CD81-PECy7 (Cellarcus Biosciences).
12. Positive control EVs for CD9, CD63 and CD81 (Cellarcus Biosciences).
13. Negative control: Synthetic liposome (Lipo-100) (Cellarcus Biosciences).
Store all stock reagents at 4°C. Store positive controls and samples for EV characterization analysis at -80°C. All the reagents must be brought to room temperature, and samples and the positive controls should be thawed on ice before starting the experiment. All the working solutions should be made fresh from the stock reagents on the day of performing experiments.
Microfluidic Resistive Pulse Sensing to Characterize Extracellular Vesicles Purified using Size-Exclusion Chromatography
1. Spectradyne nCS1 system with hardware version 2.5.0.325
(Spectradyne, Signal Hill, CA, USA).
2. Buffer: 0.1% (v/v) Tween-20 in PBS (PBS-T 0.1%).
3. Syringe filters with 0.02 µm pore size (Whatman‱ Anotop‱ 10).
4. TS-400 cartridges (particle size range 65 to 400 nm).
Immunoblotting to Characterize Extracellular Vesicles and NonVesicular Extracellular Particles
1. Pierce BCA Protein assay Kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific).
2. RIPA buffer.
3. Halt‱ Protease and Phosphatase Inhibitor Cocktail, EDTA-free (100X) (Thermo Fisher Scientific).
4. Flat-bottom 96-well plates.
5. Microplate reader.
6. 4x Laemmli sample buffer (Bio-rad).
7. Precision Plus Protein Dual Color Standards, 500 µL #1610374 (Biorad).
8. 10X Tris/Glycine/SDS (Bio-rad).
9. Criterion Cell electrophoresis system (Bio-rad).
10. 4–20% Criterion‱ TGX Stain-Free‱ Protein Gel, 18 well, 30 µL, 5678094 (Bio-rad).
11. Basic Power Supply (Bio-rad).
12. Bio-Rad Trans-Blot Turbo Transfer System (Bio-rad).
13. Trans-Blot‱ Turbo‱ RTA Midi PVDF Transfer Kit, for 40 blots (Bio-rad).
14. Tris-buffered saline with 0.1% Tween‱ 20 Detergent (TBS-T).
15. 5% Bovine Serum Albumin in TBS-T.
16. Primary Antibodies:
a. BD Pharmingen‱ Purified Mouse Anti-Human CD63 (556019,
BD Pharmigen).
b.. Purified anti-human CD81 (TAPA-1) Antibody (349502,
Biolegend).
c. Purified anti-human CD9 Antibody (312102, Biolegend).
d. Flotillin-1 Antibody (#3253, Cell signaling).
e. Anti-COX IV antibody - Mitochondrial Loading Control (ab16056,
abcam).
f. TGFBI / BIGH3 Polyclonal antibody (10188-1-AP, Proteintech).
g. Recombinant Anti-ACE2 antibody [EPR4435(2)] (ab239924,
abcam).
h. Recombinant Anti-Argonaute-2 antibody [EPR10411] (ab186733,
abcam).
i. GAPDH Antibody (FL-335) (sc-25778, Santacruz).
j. PLAP antibody (CBS36-R670-100T, Cellarcus Biosciences).
17. Secondary antibodies:
a. Peroxidase (HRP) Anti-Mouse IgG Horse Secondary Antibody,
(7076S, Cell signaling).
b. Peroxidase (HRP) Anti-Rabbit IgG Goat Secondary Antibody,
(7074S, Cell signaling).
18. Digital orbital shaker.
19. Supersignal West Femto Maximum Sensitivity Chemiluminescent
Substrate (Thermo Fisher Scientific).
20. iBright Imaging system (Thermo Fisher Scientific).