Application of extracellular vesicles in tissue engineering and regeneration medicine

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small-membrane vesicles secreted by most cells types with the role to provide intercellular communication both locally and systemically. The transfer of their content between cells, which includes nucleic acids, proteins and lipids, confers the means for these interactions and induces significant cellular behavior changes in the receiving cell. Their double membrane layer allows the EV content to be prevented from degradation from exogenous nucleases and proteases, facilitating long-term and long-distance transport of their cargo. Extracellular vesicles have recently emerged as both mediators of intercellular information transfer in numerous biological systems and as vehicles for drug delivery. In both roles, EVs have immense potential to impact tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. the therapeutic effects of several progenitor and stem cell-based therapies have been attributed primarily to EVs secreted by these cells, and EVs have been recently reported to play direct roles in injury-induced tissue regeneration processes in multiple physiological systems. In addition, EVs have been utilized for targeted drug delivery in regenerative applications and possess unique potential to be harnessed as patient-derived drug delivery vehicles for personalized medicine. Interestingly, EVs also have significant potential as drug and gene carriers for regenerative therapeutic applications. For example, seminal work by Wood and colleagues demonstrated that EVs can be loaded with a desired genetic cargo and targeted to a specific cell type by straightforward methods

Keywords:

Tissue engineering , Regeneration medicine , Extracellular vesicles