This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A new technique to diagnose chronic inflammation developed at Nagoya University can read information from the surface and within individual extracellular vesicles in blood and urine. This technique could be used to develop noninvasive tests that can not only detect chronic inflammation but also provide information about the tissues where it occurs.
The work has been published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science. Whenever the body faces damage from injury, illness or toxins, it launches an inflammatory response that involves dilating blood vessels to rush fluid and nutrients to the affected site and sending inflammatory cells to destroy pathogens and repair tissue. But sometimes, the body's immune system can keep sending inflammatory cells to attack tissues or organs over months or years, even in the absence of any threat.
Known as chronic inflammation, it underlies cancers, brain disorders, autoimmune diseases and heart disease, and it gradually causes irreversible tissue damage. Early detection of chronic inflammation is important because prolonged inflammation can cause irreversible tissue damage and contribute to disease progression. "Currently, there are several conventional inflammatory biomarkers such as C-reactive protein," said Taiga Ajiri, an assistant professor at Nagoya University's Yasui Lab, part of the Department of Biomolecular Engineering.
"These biomarkers can detect inflammation, but it is difficult to identify where it occurs." To obtain clues about where inflammation occurs, the researchers turned to extracellular vesicles (EVs): tiny membrane-bound particles released by cells throughout the body that carry molecular information from their cells of origin. EVs work like parcels with tracking labels. Proteins on their membranes can provide clues about which tissues they came from, while microRNAs inside EVs can reflect the condition of their cells of origin.
The vesicle membrane protects this cargo as it travels through body fluids such as blood and urine. Conventionally, measuring internal microRNAs often requires breaking open EV membranes, mixing molecules from many vesicles together. This makes it difficult to link information inside a vesicle to proteins on its surface.
But reading both internal microRNA and surface protein information without breaking the EV membrane could reveal previously hidden EV subpopulations. The researchers used cellulose nanofiber (CNF) sheets made from wood-derived cellulose. Their meshlike nanoscale pores can capture and retain EVs.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
