Exosomes and Nanoengineering: A Match Made for Precision Therapeutics

Abstract

Intense efforts from both scientists and physicians across Australia have been devoted onward advancing studies to fill the gap in understanding the biology and pathogenesis underlying cancer development. Exosomes are membrane-bound bio-nanoparticles secreted or released by most cells into the extracellular space. There has been an increasing interest in such bio-nanoparticles over the past 10 years, evident from the publication number of only 324 papers in 2006 to a massive increase to 4603 publications in 2018 with the search term "exosome" based on title/abstract in PubMed. Among these studies, 151 articles published from 2007 to 2018 are from Australian institutions, with 33 papers published in 2018. Such a strong surge of interest is due to discoveries that exosomes play key roles in intercellular and intertissue communication mediated by virtue of cargos contained inside the membrane-confined space. Furthermore, exosome cargos, including proteins, mRNAs and miRNAs, are linked to the Targeted exosomal delivery systems for precision nanomedicine attract wide interest across areas of molecular cell biology, pharmaceutical sciences, and nanoengineering. Exosomes are naturally derived 50-150 nm nanovesicles that play important roles in cell-to-cell and/or cell-to-tissue communications and cross-species communication. Exosomes are also a promising class of novel drug delivery vehicles owing to their ability to shield their payload from chemical and enzymatic degradations as well as to evade recognition by and subsequent removal by the immune system. Combined with a new class of affinity ligands known as aptamers or chemical antibodies, molecularly targeted exosomes are poised to become the next generation of smartly engineered nanovesicles for precision medicine. Here, recent advances in targeted exosomal delivery systems engineered by aptamer for future strategies to promote human health using this class of human-derived nanovesicles are summarized.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.

Brain Derived Exosomes Are a Double-Edged Sword in Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Exosomes are also a promising type of novel drug delivery vehicle because of their ability to cross the BBB and shield their cargo from enzymatic and chemical degradation. Recent developments regarding nanoengineering using targeted exosomes for therapeutic purposes have been conducted by researchers, for example, Xin et al (2013b), Tran et al (2019).…”

Exosome-Derived LncRNAs in Lung Cancer

“…As a novel therapeutic approach, drugs transmitted by exosomes has entered the preclinical research phase (85). In recent years, exosome-related nanovesicles have been used to the precise treatment of diseases (86)(87)(88).…”

“…Considering the targeted delivery function of exosomes, cell biology, pharmaceutical science, and nanotechnology are attracted to the new era of human-derived nanovesicles. Aptamer-mediated drug delivery system is considered to be a prominent therapeutic for nanodelivery (87). For example, after fusing with anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule cancer (EpCAM), aptamer could carry transferrin/aptamer across blood-brain barrier to cure brain diseases (153).…”

Role of extracellular vesicles in tumour microenvironment

“…On account of their good stability, long circulating half-life and relatively good bio-safety, EVs are considered to be potential drug delivery systems with high delivery efficiency and low toxicity [252]. Moreover, studies have also shown that EVs have a unique "homing" ability (the capability to target the cell type similar to their source cells) [252,253]. Studies have shown that EVs actively target a specific cell type through a variety of mechanisms especially receptor-ligand recognition [254], and thus, by engineering EVs loaded with specific ligands (including antibodies, peptides, and aptamers) onto their surfaces, the targeting ability of EVs can be changed so that they target the cells that need them for functional intervention on specific cells [255,256].…”