Evaluation of glypican-1 in extracellular vesicles from serum and pancreatic tissue as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer

Purpose Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a lethal disease, and early detection is crucial for reducing mortality. Blood exosome glypican-1 (GPC1) has been reported as a powerful diagnostic and screening tool for detecting pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) even at early stages; however, results from subsequent studies on extracellular vesicles (EVs) or exosome GPC1 have been conflicting. We hypothesized that if EVs GPC1 serves as a biomarker for PC, it may be enriched in pancreatic tumor tissues compared to adjacent non-tumor tissues. Methods Dissociated tumor tissues and paratumor tissues were treated with collagenase D and DNase I to release EVs from the extracellular matrix. Both serum-derived EVs and tissue-derived EVs were isolated by ultracentrifugation, and EVs GPC1 levels were analyzed by flow cytometry. The expression of EV GPC1 was compared between patients and controls, pre- and post-surgery, and between tumor tissues and adjacent non-tumor tissues. Results EVs were successfully isolated from pancreatic tissue. Serum EVs GPC1 levels showed no significant difference between PC patients and healthy controls, nor between pre-operative and post-operative samples. EVs GPC1 derived from tumor tissue showed no significant difference compared to matched paratumor tissue. Conclusion Although EVs GPC1 was found not to be a reliable biomarker for pancreatic cancer, we successfully isolated EVs from pancreatic tissue. Further research is needed to explore the potential of tissue-derived EVs as sources of screening biomarkers and to standardize methods for isolating and detecting EVs biomarkers.