Urinary extracellular vesicles (uEVs) secreted from bladder cancer contain cancer-specific proteins that are potential diagnostic biomarkers. Biomarker candidates, selected by shotgun proteomics, were validated using targeted proteomics of uEVs obtained from 49 patients with and 48 individuals without bladder cancer, including patients with non-malignant haematuria.

Thirteen membrane proteins were significantly upregulated in the uEVs from patients with bladder cancer in shotgun proteomics. Among them, eight proteins were validated by target proteomics, and Ephrin type-A receptor 2 (EphA2) was the only protein significantly upregulated in the uEVs of patients with bladder cancer, compared with that of patients with non-malignant haematuria. The EV-EphA2-CD9 ELISA demonstrated good diagnostic performance (sensitivity: 61.1%, specificity: 97.2%). Researchers showed that EphA2 promotes proliferation, invasion and migration and EV-EphA2 promotes the invasion and migration of bladder cancer cells.

@Eisuke Tomiyama, et al.

Figure 1. EphA2 on urinary extracellular vesicles as a novel diagnostic biomarker for bladder cancer

Source from:

Tomiyama E, Fujita K, Matsuzaki K, et al. EphA2 on urinary extracellular vesicles as a novel biomarker for bladder cancer diagnosis and its effect on the invasiveness of bladder cancer. British Journal of Cancer 2022; 127: 1312-1323. doi: 10.1038.s41416-022-01860-0.