by Amr Ahmed WalyEldeen, Ghada Mohamed, Sherif Nasser Taha, Abdallah M. Gameel, Liali Yousef Talat, Hebatallah Hassan, Sherif Abdelaziz Ibrahim Breast cancer remains a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with obesity markedly increasing the risk in affected individuals.
Liquid biopsy-based extracellular vesicles (EVs) offer a minimally invasive platform for molecular profiling of tumor-derived markers. Plasma small-EVs from obese, chemotherapy-naïve breast cancer patients (n = 76; stages I–III) and age-matched obese controls (n = 36) were enriched and characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and specific EV markers.
Proteomic profile of the enriched small-EVs using nanoLC-MS/MS identified Fibronectin 1 (FN1) and von Willebrand Factor (VWF) as candidate markers. Bioinformatics and STRING networks revealed interactions with Syndecan-2 (SDC2) and Galectin-3 (Gal-3).
As an independent validation, western blot confirmed that FN1, VWF, and SDC2 were higher enriched in the small-EVs of breast cancer with different stages than in those of normal and that high content of small-EVs FN1 and SDC2 was primarily associated with the aggressive triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtype.
PLOS ONE (Medicine) published a clinical update in Research Highlights on 05 May 2026.
The item focuses on Plasma small-extracellular vesicles’ proteomic signature in neoadjuvant chemotherapy–naïve breast cancer patients.
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