Plant extracellular vesicles and their potential in human health research, the practical approach

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles are small membrane particles (30-1000 nm) released by Bacteria, Eukaryotes and Archaea. They have been shown to play an important role in intracellular and intercellular communication, within and between kingdoms via transport of bioactive molecules. Thus, they can be involved in altering gene expression and regulation of physiological and pathological processes of the recipient. Their unique properties make extracellular vesicles a perfect candidate vector for targeted drug delivery or a biomarker. For a long time, animal and mainly mammal extracellular vesicles have been used in research. But for plants, there had been speculations about the existence of nanovesicles due to the presence of a cell wall. Today, awareness of plant extracellular vesicles is on the rise and their research has proved they have various functions, such as protein secretion, transport of bioactive molecules or defense against pathogens. Further potential of plant extracellular vesicles is stressed in this review.

Mucus-derived exosome-like vesicles from the Spanish slug (Arion vulgaris): taking advantage of invasive pest species in biotechnology

“…Most of the attention in the EXs research field has been focused on human (mammalian) EXs sources, providing a basic understanding of their role in biological processes and investigating their potential use in biomedicine. However, there is a growing interest in the less conventional sources, ranging from invertebrates to plants and fungi 17,[50][51][52] . EXs are not restricted only to communication within an individual or within certain species but have been repeatedly shown to provide inter-species as well as inter-kingdom interactions 18 .…”

Plant Extracellular Vesicles: Investigating Their Utilization as Beneficial Nutrients in Diet

“…In particular, phosphatidic acid is a major component in ginger-and grape-derived vesicles, and it has been demonstrated its involvement in the mechanism of membrane fusion [22]. Moreover, since it is a cellsignaling lipid involved in the activation of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), as well as mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways, phosphatidic acid can be considered the main effector on mammalian cells growth and proliferation upon treatment with P-EVs [8]. Besides their role in vesicle internalization, lipids may also contribute to P-EVs' intrinsic therapeutic properties [23].…”

“…Similar to mammalian ones, plant-derived extracellular vesicles (P-EVs) are small vesicles surrounded by a lipid-enriched membrane, transporting a variety of bioactive substances such as nucleic acids, vitamins, antioxidant molecules, proteins, and metabolites [7]. Due to current insufficient knowledge, it is still difficult to classify plant EVs with the established nomenclature used for mammalian EVs [8]. In order to standardize the literature, the term "extracellular vesicles" was proposed to include all vesicles isolated from extracellular compartments (e.g., apoplastic fluid or growth medium), and "plant-derived vesicles" for vesicular fractions obtained by disrupting plant tissues, when natural release into the apoplast cannot be established [9].…”

Plant and mammalian-derived extracellular vesicles: a new therapeutic approach for the future

“…The size of plant-derived nanovesicles is generally between 50 and 1,000 nm and varies according to plant origin and isolation technique (see Table 2 ). Plant-derived extracellular vesicles conduct heterogeneous cargos containing different biomolecules (proteins, small RNAs, lipids, and nucleic acids) and are primarily composed of phosphatidic acid, phosphatidylcholine, di galactosyl diacylglycerol, monogalactosyldiacylglycerol, and phytosterols ( Liu et al, 2020a ; Kocholata et al, 2022 ). The group of phospholipids occupies several functions including stability, vesicle liberation, and intercellular communication, and participates in the mechanism of membrane fusion .…”