目前用于乳腺癌（BC）诊断的临床工具不足，但液体活检在不侵入性的策略中最近出现，可提供实时的肿瘤生物标志物快照，用于早期诊断、活动监测进展以及治疗后复发。细胞外囊泡（EV）是由细胞释放到生物体液中的纳米级膜状结构，直径为50-1000纳米。 EV含有蛋白质、核酸和脂质，通过细胞间通信在肿瘤发生和转移中发挥关键作用。正在使用基于质谱技术的蛋白质组学和下一代测序，研究小型EV（sEV）中的蛋白质和miRNA作为潜在的新的BC生物标志物来源。本综述涵盖了关于sEV分离和单个sEV分析技术的最新进展，并总结了为BC诊断、预后和化学耐药性鉴定的sEV蛋白质和miRNA生物标志物。讨论了当前sEV生物标志物研究的限制以及未来的应用前景。 © 2023. The Author(s).

Current clinical tools for breast cancer (BC) diagnosis are insufficient but liquid biopsy of different bodily fluids has recently emerged as a minimally invasive strategy that provides a real-time snapshot of tumour biomarkers for early diagnosis, active surveillance of progression, and post-treatment recurrence. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nano-sized membranous structures 50-1000 nm in diameter that are released by cells into biological fluids. EVs contain proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids which play pivotal roles in tumourigenesis and metastasis through cell-to-cell communication. Proteins and miRNAs from small EVs (sEV), which range in size from 50-150 nm, are being investigated as a potential source for novel BC biomarkers using mass spectrometry-based proteomics and next-generation sequencing. This review covers recent developments in sEV isolation and single sEV analysis technologies and summarises the sEV protein and miRNA biomarkers identified for BC diagnosis, prognosis, and chemoresistance. The limitations of current sEV biomarker research are discussed along with future perspective applications.© 2023. The Author(s).