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Dryad

Data for: Sensitive and specific detection of tumor-derived exosomes using nanopore-crystal microchips

Abstract

Tumor-derived exosomes (tExos) have emerged as promising circulating biomarkers for early cancer diagnosis. However, the sensitivity and specificity of existing assays often limit the clinical translation of tExos. In this study, we present a highly versatile microfluidic platform, termed the nanopore-crystal microchip (NC-Chip), for specific isolation and ultrasensitive detection of tExos in as little as 0.5 μL of plasma samples from pancreatic cancer (PC) patients. The NC-Chip incorporates a herringbone-patterned hierarchical porous hydrogel scaffold, enabling fluid manipulation, size exclusion, immunoaffinity capture, and signal amplification. These integrated features significantly enhance the sensitivity and specificity of tExos assays in complex clinical scenarios. Utilizing an eight-protein signature, the NC-Chip can distinguish patients with pancreatitis and non-metastatic PC with 100% accuracy in the training cohort and 94.9% accuracy in the validation cohort. This platform is sensitive, specific, inexpensive, and only needs small-volume samples, offering a powerful exosome-based liquid biopsy tool for early PC diagnosis.