Universiteit Gent

Vib Vzw

Olivier De Wever

An Hendrix

Sven Eyckerman

Wendy Westbroek

Pieter Mestdagh

Joke Vandesompele

Astrid De Boeck

Joeri Tulkens

Edward Geeurickx

The present disclosure relates to a method of analyzing a biofluid of a subject for the presence of bacterial extracellular vesicles (EV), the method comprising the steps of a) extracting bacterial EV from the biofluid, b) analyzing the bacterial EV-extracted molecular patterns for the presence of a disease marker, wherein the disease marker is a disease-specific molecular pattern of the subject; and the subject comprising patients diagnosed with HIV, IBD or cancer or the subject receiving a treatment.

Use of bacterial extracellular vesicles as a biomarker for intestinal barrier permeability and microbial dysbiosis

This disclosure relates to the field of research and clinical usage of extracellular vesicles. More in particular, this disclosure relates to usages of recombinant extracellular vesicles comprising a) a self-assembling protein that directs its own release through vesicles as a luminal membrane-bound protein and b) a heterologous marker. Indeed, the disclosure provides recombinant extracellular vesicles that can be used as a biological reference material in methods to quantify extracellular vesicles in a sample, and/or, that can be used to calibrate a device for sample extracellular vesicles analysis, and/or, that can be used to evaluate the isolation process of extracellular vesicles. This disclosure thus relates to improving the accuracy of an extracellular vesicle-based diagnosis.

Usages of recombinant extracellular vesicles

The present invention relates to the prognosis, therapeutic stratification and treatment of colorectal cancer. More in particular, the present invention discloses that significantly increased levels of transmembrane type 1 neuregulin-1 in tumor-associated mesenchymal cells present in a sample of a patient indicate that the patient has a worse prognosis when compared to patients having low levels of transmembrane type 1 neuregulin-1 in tumor-associated mesenchymal cells. Moreover, the present invention relates to the usage of transmembrane type 1 neuregulin-1 expression in tumor-associated mesenchymal cells to predict resistance to HER1 inhibitors during colorectal cancer therapy and/or to predict whether a patient would benefit from a therapy based on the prevention of neuregulin-1 and/or HER3 activity.

Neuregulin-1-based prognosis and therapeutic stratification of colorectal cancer

The present invention relates to evaluating the prognosis of patients with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer on the basis of Rab27B expression. The invention further relates to a kit comprising an assay for measuring Rab27B levels in said patients and to the usage of Rab27B as a target to screen for drugs capable of inhibiting or diminishing metastasis of said cancer. Furthermore, the invention discloses compounds which can be used to treat estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.

Growing community of inventors

Destelbergen, Belgium

Olivier De Wever