EV-Checklist: A fast documentation tool for enhancing transparency and accessibility in extracellular vesicle research

Extracellular vesicle (EV) research has experienced rapid growth in the past decade. While community-driven efforts, such as the MISEV guidelines (2014, 2018, 2023), have aimed to standardize reporting and enhance experimental rigor, these have not yet been universally adopted in daily EV research practices. The complexity and time commitment required by existing reporting tools can deter researchers from fully embracing them, leading to incomplete or inconsistent documentation in EV studies. Therefore, we created EV-checklist, a complementary digital tool to streamline documentation during manuscript submission and increase transparency for the reviewers, editors and readers. Our tool guides researchers through a straightforward checklist covering nomenclature, source, isolation, characterization, and functional studies of EVs. It generates a concise two-page PDF formatted table for easy integration into manuscripts and provides editors, reviewers, and readers with a clear overview of the conducted studies. EV-Checklist intends to complement existing comprehensive registries as a ‘fast-and-easy’ tool to enhance clarity and accessibility of methodological and functional insights. It may also promote higher adherence to documentation standards and in EV studies. Our tool is available on https://ev-zone.org .