Small
extracellular vesicles (sEVs) play important roles in mediating
intercellular communication and regulating biological processes. Facile
sEV isolation is the essential and preliminary issue for their function
investigation and downstream biomedical applications, while the traditional
methods are challenged by tedious procedures, low purity, low yield,
and potential damage. In this work, we developed an sEV isolation
paper-based device (sEV-IsoPD) based on a three-dimensional (3D) paper
chip, which is composed of a porous membrane for size exclusion and
a metal–organic framework (MOF)/antibody-modified paper for
immunoaffinity capture. In combination with a peristaltic pump-driven
flow system, the sEV-IsoPD can efficiently isolate EV from cell culture
medium and serum. Compared with the ultracentrifugation method, sEV-IsoPD
exhibited a 5.1 times higher yield (1.7 × 109 mL–1), 1.6 times higher purity (1.6 × 1011 mg–1), and 7.5 times higher recovery (77.3%) with
only 8.3% of the time (30 min) and 1.0% of the instrument cost ($710).
Moreover, sEV concentration can be visually detected in a quantitative
manner with this paper-based device with a linear range from 3.0 ×
106 to 3.0 × 1010 mL–1 and a detection limit of 2.2 × 106 mL–1. The sEV-IsoPD provides an efficient and practical approach for
the rapid isolation and visible detection of sEVs, which are promising
for the preparation of sEVs and diagnosis of disease.