Recent advances of emerging microfluidic chips for exosome mediated cancer diagnosis

Recent technological advances in the field of microfluidic chips have provided great opportunities to boost the development of exosome-based cancer diagnosis. The emerging microfluidic chips with intrinsic multi-functions can be highly competent for the establishment of next-generation analysis platform for exosome. Herein, efforts are made to give in-depth insights into the recent advances of engineering microfluidic chips on the representative examples of the current exosome-related research, ranging from exosome separation, enrichment, controllable release to downstream analysis. We discussed the challenges and solutions for the exosome analysis in the cancer diagnosis, especially the exosome heterogeneity, single exosome analysis, combination analysis of the exosomal protein and nucleic acid and the immuno-therapy related monitoring. The development trends and promising research directions of the exosome study in the future were also discussed. This review will shed light on facilitating design of novel microfluidic chips for the exosome mediated cancer diagnosis. © 2021 The Authors