Atomic Force Microscopy experiment and Monte-Carlo study of the elasticity of exosomes

Nano-vesicles (50-300 nm) are ubiquitous in biology. Among them, extra-cellular

vesicles (EV) or exosomes, released by the eukaryotic cells, are of great interest.

Their mechanical properties play important roles in their functions, e.g., cellular

uptake of nano-vesicles depend on their deformability. Furthermore, given the

nano-meter size of EVs, thermal fluctuations can renormalise their elastic moduli.

We use Monte-Carlo simulations and Atomic Force Microscopy to study the elastic

properties of exosomes. In particular, we consider two classes of exosomes; i) the

wild type and ii) a special case where expression of Pan protein is artificially

reduced. We show that the exosomes in which the Pan expression is changed is

statistically stiffer compared to wild type. We interpret the data obtained in the

experiments using Monte-Carlo simulations.