📣 Our new paper is now out in Advanced Healthcare Materials
https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adhm.202504684
The core message is straightforward and critical for the ExtracellularVesicle field: EV isolation is not a mere technical detail; it is a biological intervention. While MISEV guidelines are essential, following them as a checklist is not enough. If we do not critically assess how purification shapes EV proteomes and function, biological conclusions remain fragile.
This is exactly where our study comes in. At the EV-iTEC Core Facility within the Institute for Tumor immunology headed by Elke Pogge von Strandmann at Philipps-Universität Marburg, we deliberately linked particle-normalized proteomics to direct EV function. The proteomics was carried out in close collaboration with Witold Szymański and Johannes Graumann at the Translational Proteomics Core Facility.
For functional analysis, we focused on ADAM10, using a cell-free activity assay established together with Joerg Bartsch. Working with synthetic peptides allowed us to bypass uptake effects, receptor bias and cell-model noise, directly linking isolation strategy to functional outcomes.
What emerges from this work is not a ranking of methods, but a principle: the isolation method you choose defines the functional identity you observe.
Isolation is never neutral.
From my perspective, this is also what an EV CoreFacility should contribute: not just access to technology, but integration of methodology, quality control and functional readouts, and, importantly, active networking between complementary expertise across a faculty. This study is very much the result of such interactions within Fachbereich Medizin, Philipps-Universität Marburg, linking EV biology, proteomics and functional protein activity.
The conceptual framework and key findings of this study were previously presented as a featured talk at the ISEV2025 annual meeting.
Many thanks to all collaborators involved, and in particular to Dolores J. Salander, whose careful experimental work carried a large part of this study. This work was further supported by and embedded in the scientific framework of GRK 2573
