By Diagnostics World News Staff
January 20, 2026 | In a study published in Nature Cell Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41556-025-01795-7), researchers unveiled EVMap, a high-resolution blueprint of the proteins and lipids in human circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs), microscopic packages that cells use to communicate. The blueprint positions EVs as a promising new class of diagnostic biomarkers and lays the groundwork for more precise liquid biopsy tests.
EVs have long attracted interest because they circulate widely in blood and other body fluids, carrying molecular clues about the cells and tissues from which they originate. In principle, that makes them ideal for minimally invasive diagnostics. In practice, however, progress has been hampered by a fundamental problem: reliably distinguishing true EVs from the dense background of plasma proteins, lipoproteins, and other particles that contaminate blood samples.
The study, co-led by David W. Greening, Ph.D., professor of biomedical and molecular proteomics at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute (Australia), and Alin Rai, Ph.D., addresses this bottleneck. Using high-throughput, quantitative proteomics, and lipidomics, the team identified 182 proteins and 52 lipids that define hallmark features of human plasma EVs. They also flagged 29 proteins and 114 lipids characteristic of non-EV particles to distinguish what is and is not an EV.
This dual reference—what an EV is and what it is not—represents a critical advance for diagnostics, as conventional EV markers have been too inconsistent to support clinical translation. EVMap provides standardized criteria that can be applied across laboratories and patient cohorts, improving reproducibility and confidence in EV-based measurements.
With EVMap, researchers can detect biological processes associated with disease well before clinical symptoms appear. In cardiovascular disease, for example, the team reports EV-associated molecular patterns that can identify individuals with early signs of coronary heart disease years in advance instead of just measuring general factors such as age and cholesterol levels. With earlier, more acute diagnosis, this will allow earlier intervention, as well as more personalized prevention and treatment strategies.
While challenges remain in standardization and clinical deployment, by turning EVs into well-defined diagnostic entities rather than biological curiosities, EVMap brings liquid biopsy–based early disease detection closer to routine clinical practice.