Future of Exosome Bioinformatics.

Abstract

Exosomes are under intense study as a promising means for drug or biomarker discovery, primarily due to their implication in intercellular communication and the emergence of disease states and their potential as a cutting-edge, natural delivery system at a nanoscale level. The proteins and nucleic acid cargo of exosomes has been at the center of exosome bioinformatic analysis in the context of health and disease, towards the hunt for novel biomarkers and diagnostics. However, the exosomal lipid composition has been emerging as an interesting target of study as well. Exosomes derived from different sources exhibit enrichment of specific lipid classes and various lipid compositions under different physiological conditions. Therefore, there is a mounting need for exosome lipidomic studies to build the foundation for novel therapeutic studies that use exosomal components. Bioinformatic pipelines are under development to efficiently identify, quantify and elucidate the exosomal lipids and their roles in disease. Cutting-edge bioinformatic tools, such as LipidXplorer, LUX Score, and LipidHome allow the execution of essential analyses such as shotgun lipidomics, and the detection of systematic differences in lipid composition and metadata processing. In the case of pancreatic cancer, an admittedly prevalent and life-threatening disease, these tools have yielded novel exosome lipid biomarkers. Furthermore, bioinformatic platforms such as “Lipidomics Informatics for Life-Science” enable fast and integrated access to these pipelines in a user-friendly manner. Modern bioinformatic methods facilitate the processing of exosome lipidomics