The unique profile of upregulated glycosylation in metastatic cancer cells may form the basis for the development of new biomarkers for the targeting and diagnosis of specific cancers. This study introduces a pancreatic cancer cell-derived exosome detection technology, which is based on the specific binding of lectins to distinctive glycan profiles on the surface of exosomes. Lectins with a high and specific affinity for sialic acid or fucose were attached to bifunctional Janus nanoparticles (JNPs), which facilitated interactions with pancreatic cancer cell-derived exosomes in a microfluidic device. Here, we show that pancreatic cancer cell-derived exosomes from two cell lines and plasma samples collected from patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer were successfully captured on the lectin-conjugated JNPs with affinities that were comparable to those of CA19-9, a conventional antibody. In addition, exosome detection using our platform could differentiate between metastatic and nonmetastatic pancreatic cancer cells. This study opens the possibility to achieve a new early diagnosis marker based on the glycan properties of pancreatic cancer cell-derived exosomes.

转移性癌细胞中糖基化上调的独特特征可能为开发新的生物标记物以靶向和诊断特定癌症奠定基础。这项研究引入了一种胰腺癌细胞衍生的外泌体检测技术，该技术基于凝集素与外泌体表面独特的聚糖谱的特异性结合。对唾液酸或岩藻糖具有高特异性的亲和力的凝集素附着在双功能Janus纳米颗粒（JNPs）上，这有助于在微流体装置中与胰腺癌细胞衍生的外泌体相互作用。这里，我们表明，从两个细胞系和从诊断为胰腺癌的患者收集的血浆样品中提取的胰腺癌细胞衍生的外泌体已成功地捕获在与凝集素结合的JNP上，其亲和力与常规抗体CA19-9相当。此外，使用我们的平台进行外来体检测可以区分转移性和非转移性胰腺癌细胞。这项研究为基于胰腺癌细胞衍生的外泌体的聚糖特性实现新的早期诊断标志物打开了可能性。