Extracellular vesicles in cancer therapy: Roles, potential application, and challenges

Biochim Biophys Acta Rev Cancer. 2024 Apr 10:189101. doi: 10.1016/j.bbcan.2024.189101. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTExtracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a novel cell-free strategy for the treatment of many diseases including cancer as they play important roles in cancer development and progression. Considering their natural capacity to facilitate cell-to-cell communication as well as their high physiochemical stability and biocompatibility, EVs serve as superior delivery systems for a wide range of therapeutic agents, including medicines, nanomaterials, nucleic acids, and proteins. Therefore, EVs-based cancer therapy is of greater interest to researchers. Mounting studies indicate that EVs can be improved in efficiency, specificity, and safety for cancer therapy. However, their heterogeneity of physicochemical properties and functions is not fully understood, hindering the achievement of bioactive EVs with high yield and purity. Herein, we paid more attention to the EVs applications and their significance in cancer therapy.PMID:38608963 | DOI:10.1016/j.bbcan.2024.189101
Source: Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Category: Biochemistry Authors: Source Type: research