Fig. 1: Mass spectrometry analysis of healthy, benign, and stage 1 breast cancer patient plasma-derived EVs.

a All proteins identified in the mass spectrometry data were run through GO analysis software (WebGeSalt, 2024) and the cellular compartments from which the identified proteins arose were analyzed. b Apolipoprotein mass spectrometry data was transformed to give any zero values a value of 0.000001, and a multiple Mann–Whitney T-test was used to identify any apolipoproteins that were statistically significantly different in the healthy (n = 19)/benign (n = 19)/post-operative (n = 9) group compared to breast cancer (n = 77)/pre-operative (n = 9) cohort. c Mass spectrometry data was transformed and analyzed using GraphPad Prism and a volcano plot generated to identify any statistically significant proteins elevated in the breast cancer (n = 77)/pre-operative (n = 9) patient plasma samples as compared to healthy (n = 19)/benign (n = 19)/post-operative (n = 9) plasma samples. A multiple Mann–Whitney T-test was done to ascertain p-values. d Heat map generated in GraphPad prism gives a visual representation of the z-score (=observed score − mean of the sample/standard deviation) of identified proteins in healthy (n = 19)/benign (n = 19) individuals versus post-operative (n = 9) and breast cancer (n = 77 + n = 9 pre-operative) samples. Yellow/orange colors indicate a protein that is more abundant, with decreasing abundance represented through pink, purple and black.