Exosomes as Drug Delivery Vehicles

Presentation by: Madelyn Robinson
Reviewed by: Daniel Flynn
Like many things in the world, exosomes have a side to them that most people don’t usually see. Exosomes are tiny extracellular vesicles produced naturally by almost all cell types in the body, and they are most commonly known for their beneficial effects such as reducing inflammation, removing cytotoxins, rejuvenating skin, and even regrowing hair when used in exosome therapies (López-Otín et al., 2013; Takeuchi et al., 2015; Hu et al., 2019; Rajendran et al. 2017). However, exosomes can also be used to transport therapeutic drugs and help a wide variety of health conditions and diseases, many of which list age as a significant risk factor.
Using exosomes to deliver therapeutic drugs has many exciting advantages including the special ability to cross the Blood-Brain Barrier; however, it also has a couple smaller disadvantages as well (Ha et al., 2016). Early research has suggested the effectiveness of this technique in treating cancer and Parkinson’s disease (Qu et al., 2018; Johnsen et al., 2014), so hopefully future research into this topic could alleviate the effects of aging as we know them.
Future Research:
Develop cost-effective methods of obtaining and loading exosomes with less risk of reducing the number of functional exosomes
Further study of the effectiveness of exosome-mediated drug delivery to alleviate the symptoms of other neurological and central nervous system diseases
Conduct human studies and analyze any differences from previous rat studies
Investigation into using exosome drug delivery systems to treat multiple types of cancer
References:
Ha, D., Yang, N., & Nadithe, V. (2016). Exosomes as therapeutic drug carriers and delivery vehicles across biological membranes: Current perspectives and future challenges. Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, 6(4), 287-296. doi:10.1016/j.apsb.2016.02.001
Hu, S., Li, Z., Cores, J., Huang, K., Su, T., Dinh, P., & Cheng, K. (2019). Needle-Free Injection of Exosomes Derived from Human Dermal Fibroblast Spheroids Ameliorates Skin Photoaging. ACS Nano, 13(10), 11273-11282. doi:10.1021/acsnano.9b04384
Johnsen, K. B., Gudbergsson, J. M., Skov, M. N., Pilgaard, L., Moos, T., & Duroux, M. (2014). A comprehensive overview of exosomes as drug delivery vehicles - Endogenous nanocarriers for targeted cancer therapy. Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Reviews on Cancer, 1846(1), 75-87. doi:10.1016/j.bbcan.2014.04.005
López-Otín, C., Blasco, M. A., Partridge, L., Serrano, M., & Kroemer, G. (2013). The Hallmarks of Aging. Cell, 153(6), 1194-1217. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2013.05.039
Qu, M., Lin, Q., Huang, L., Fu, Y., Wang, L., He, S., . . . Sun, X. (2018). Dopamine-loaded blood exosomes targeted to brain for better treatment of Parkinson's disease. Journal of Controlled Release, 287, 156-166. doi:10.1016/j.jconrel.2018.08.035
Rajendran, R. L., Gangadaran, P., Bak, S. S., Oh, J. M., Kalimuthu, S., Lee, H. W., . . . Ahn, B. (2017). Extracellular vesicles derived from MSCs activates dermal papilla cell in vitro and promotes hair follicle conversion from telogen to anagen in mice. Scientific Reports, 7(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-017-15505-3
Takeuchi, T., Suzuki, M., Fujikake, N., Popiel, H. A., Kikuchi, H., Futaki, S., . . . Nagai, Y. (2015). Intercellular chaperone transmission via exosomes contributes to maintenance of protein homeostasis at the organismal level. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(19). doi:10.1073/pnas.1412651112