Abstract
Extracellular vesicles (EVs), secreted by cells, are membranous structures between 40 to 100 nm in size. EVs contain proteins, mRNA, miRNA, and signaling molecules. EVs facilitate the transport of these molecules between cells. Recently researchers found EVs may play an important role in not only heart, kidney diseases but cancerogenesis. However, EVs are quite small and their content in biological samples can be extremely low. Conventionally, the ultracentrifuge method is used to isolating EVs from serum or culture medium in which multiple steps from low speed to high speed centrifugations, are involved in order to collect EVs. In addition, a relatively large amount of sample is necessary for this method. Therefore, ultracentrifuge is time-consuming and not suitable in trace analysis. This thesis aims to establish a microfluidic immuno-affinity based approach to solve the disadvantages of ultracentrifuge methods.