Aethlon Medical Inc (AEMD)

[ANESRI]

Use of exosome analysis to reveal glioma-specific genetic changes in patient serum



ASCO Annual Meeting — Chicago, IL (June 2011)
Authors: B. Carter1, F. Hochberg2, X. Breakefield2, L. Balaj2, S. Sivaraman2, W. Curry2, S.N. Kalkanis3, L. Loguidice3, L.M. Russo4, M. Noerhelm4, J. Skog2,4
Affiliations: 1University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA; 2Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 3Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, USA; 4Exosome Diagnostics, New York, NY, USA

Background: Microvesicles (including exosomes) are small lipid bilayer vesicles released from all cells into bodily fluids and have been shown to harbor both RNA and DNA from the parent cell from which they were released. Recently, a rapid method to extract high integrity RNA from serum microvesicles was developed allowing reliable assessment of their mRNA content. This allows us to gain a transcriptional profile of brain tumors without the need for invasive biopsy. Here we use serum microvesicles to examine the expression pattern of various genes in glioblastoma patients including specific mutations such as the EGFRvIII gene.

Conclusions: These data indicated that microvesicle RNA can reveal glioma specific genetic changes in patient serum. This may have utility in detecting brain tumors via a serum assay or analyzing specific genetic changes in a glioblastoma patient without invasive brain biopsy.