Use of extracellular vesicles from lymphatic drainage as surrogate markers of melanoma progression and BRAF V600E mutation.

Liquid biopsies from cancer patients have the potential to improve diagnosis and prognosis. The assessment of surrogate markers of tumor progression in circulating extracellular vesicles could be a powerful non-invasive approach in this setting. We have characterized extracellular vesicles purified from the lymphatic drainage also known as exudative seroma (ES) of stage III melanoma patients obtained after lymphadenectomy. Proteomic analysis showed that seroma-derived exosomes are enriched in proteins resembling melanoma progression. In addition, we found that the BRAFV600E mutation can be detected in ES-derived extracellular vesicles and its detection correlated with patients at risk of relapse.