Progress on exosomes in the diagnosis and treatment of disease and drug delivery system / 药学实践杂志

As a type of extracellular vesicles, exosomes are released by living cells and contain diverse bioactive molecules, including nucleic acids, proteins, lipids and metabolites. They play an important role in various physiological and pathological processes by a special intercellular communication medium. As endogenous vesicles, exosomes also have the advantages of systemic circulation stability, good biocompatibility and specific targeting of tissues and cells, as well as they are promising candidates for drug delivery system. The production mechanism of exosomes describe was summarized, the methods of extraction and separation the application and mechanism of exosomes in immune and inflammation-related diseases, cardiovascular system diseases, nervous system diseases, tumors, etc. were reviewed. The engineering modifications of exosomes in high targeting properties based on the drug delivery were overviewed. Exosomes support the diagnosis and prognostic assessment of multiple diseases, which have broad application prospects as a very potential safe and specific endogenous nano-drug carrier.

Orange-derived extracellular vesicles nanodrugs for efficient treatment of ovarian cancer assisted by transcytosis effect

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have recently received much attention about the application of drug carriers due to their desirable properties such as nano-size, biocompatibility, and high stability. Herein, we demonstrate orange-derived extracellular vesicles (OEV) nanodrugs (DN@OEV) by modifying cRGD-targeted doxorubicin (DOX) nanoparticles (DN) onto the surface of OEV, enabling significantly enhancing tumor accumulation and penetration, thereby efficiently inhibiting the growth of ovarian cancer. The obtained DN@OEV enabled to inducement of greater transcytosis capability in ovarian cancer cells, which presented the average above 10-fold transcytosis effect compared with individual DN. It was found that DN@OEV could trigger receptor-mediated endocytosis to promote early endosome/recycling endosomes pathway for exocytosis and simultaneously reduce degradation in the early endosomes-late endosomes-lysosome pathway, thereby inducing the enhanced transcytosis. In particular, the zombie mouse model bearing orthotopic ovarian cancer further validated DN@OEV presented high accumulation and penetration in tumor tissue by the transcytosis process. Our study indicated the strategy in enhancing transcytosis has significant implications for improving the therapeutic efficacy of the drug delivery system.