Adherence to minimal experimental requirements for defining extracellular vesicles and their functions: a systematic review

Abstract

Rigorous measures are required to cope with the advance of extracellular vesicle (EV) research, from 183 to 2,309 studies/year, between 2012-2020. The ‘MISEV’ guidelines requested standardizing methods, thereby assuring and improving of EV research quality. We investigated how EV research improved over time. We conducted a keyword search in 5,093 accessible publications over the period 2012-2020 and analyzed the methodology used for EV isolation and characterization. We found a significant improvement over the years particularly regarding EV characterization where recent papers used a higher number of methods and EV markers to check for quantity and purity. Interestingly, we also found that EV papers using more methods and EV markers were cited more frequently cited. Papers citing MISEV criteria were more prone to use a higher number of characterization methods. We therefore established a concise checklist summarizing MISEV criteria to support EV researchers towards reaching the highest standards in the field. Graphical abstract