Therapeutic Exosomes

Exosomes are small vesicles with diameters ranging from 30 to 150 nm and are considered to be excellent drug delivery vehicles. In recent years, breakthroughs in exosome-targeted drug delivery have attracted widespread attention from researchers around the world. There is increasing evidence that exosomes are reliable drug delivery systems. Creative Biolabs has a mature exosome research platform and can provide customers with high-quality and end-to-end exosome services supported by a highly experienced team.

Advantages of Exosome Drug Delivery Systems

Ordinary drugs usually only have a very small part to act on the diseased part after entering the body. Therefore, the design and development of drug carriers are becoming more and more important. Compared with synthetic drug delivery systems such as liposomes, nanoparticles, and microspheres, exosome drug delivery systems have their unique advantages.

Wide range of sources: Almost all cells can release exosomes. Exosomes are also widely found in human body fluids.
Good biocompatibility and non-immunogenicity: Exosomes are natural liposomes and can non-invasively pass through many tissue barriers (such as the blood-brain barrier, etc.).
Innate target homing ability: Exosomes can be modified to express specific molecules or improve targeting capabilities.
Exosomes as a carrier can make the drug intake larger, the circulation time longer, and the drug release more sustained.

Therapeutic exosomes can be classified as natural exosomes or engineered exosomes. Natural exosomes are directly derived from donor cells, such as stem cell-derived exosomes (SC-Exos). Compared with stem cell therapy, SC-Exos can be used as a cell-free therapy with comparable efficacy but higher safety. Studies have found that SC-Exos has the functions of promoting angiogenesis, inhibiting cell apoptosis, promoting cell proliferation, and releasing immunomodulatory substances. Therefore, SC-Exos has a certain application value in the field of regenerative medicine. Engineered exosomes are exosomes that contain specific molecules or drugs on the surface or inside. The types of drugs that can be loaded into exosomes include small molecule drugs, proteins, nucleic acids, etc. Passive loading generally introduces drugs into exosomes by disrupting the integrity of the exosome membrane. Active loading alters the exosome biogenesis pathway by modifying the donor cells so that specific molecules are spontaneously loaded into exosomes.

Fig.1. Exosome engineering methods for encapsulation of therapeutic agents. (Song, 2021)

Research Progress of Therapeutic Exosomes

Based on the above advantages, exosomes can be used as therapeutic drugs. In recent years, the application of exosomes in drug delivery, tumor-targeted therapy, and immunotherapy has become a research hotspot, bringing some new opportunities for the treatment of some currently intractable diseases. Currently, therapeutic exosomes for various diseases have entered the more promising stage of clinical testing. These diseases include tumors and cancer, COVID-19, lung disease, skin disease, neurological disease, inflammatory disease, viral infection, traumatic brain injury, eye disease, and kidney disease. In addition, immune cells or pathogen-derived exosomes can also be used as vaccine carriers.

Creative Biolabs has been focusing on the research progress of exosome drugs over years. It is believed that with the development of therapeutic exosomes and the improvement of exosome standardization, exosome drugs will be widely used in clinical practice. If you have research needs for exosome drugs, please feel free to contact us to further advance your project.

Reference

Song, Y.; Kim, Y.; et al. The emerging role of exosomes as novel therapeutics: Biology, technologies, clinical applications, and the next. American Journal of Reproductive Immunology. 2021, 85(2):e13329.

Plant Exosome Isolation