article · Intelligent Pharmacy
Extracellular vesicles are nanometre-sized, membrane-bound carriers derived from cells and present in body fluids. Naturally functioning to clear redundant cellular material and facilitate intercellular communication, they display high biocompatibility, advantageous molecular composition, and innate targeting capacity. Unlike conventional synthetic drug delivery systems, which frequently encounter obstacles related to inefficiency, cellular toxicity, or immune rejection, extracellular vesicles offer strong safety profiles and can cross the blood-brain barrier. They can encapsulate both water-soluble and lipid-soluble therapeutic agents while exerting intrinsic therapeutic effects. Although extracellular vesicles are implicated in key pathological conditions including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and infection propagation, their clinical deployment as delivery vehicles faces notable barriers. Specifically, progress is hindered by the absence of scalable isolation methods and efficient drug-loading mechanisms, presenting key technical challenges for current pharmaceutical development.
Traditional synthetic carriers used to deliver medicines into the body often trigger adverse immune reactions, cause toxicity, or fail to deliver drugs effectively. Extracellular vesicles offer a natural, biocompatible alternative that can cross biological barriers and carry diverse therapeutic compounds, providing new opportunities to treat complex conditions such as cancer and heart disease if production hurdles can be resolved.
This work informs drug delivery platform development for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies seeking alternatives to synthetic nanocarriers. The technology could enhance treatments requiring passage across the blood-brain barrier. However, applications remain at an early development stage, as real-world commercial translation is currently limited by unresolved manufacturing challenges around scalable vesicle isolation and efficient therapeutic cargo loading.
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Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nanometric size, a cell-derived drug delivery carrier composed of membrane-bound structures, release into the cellular medium and found in body fluids. EVs serve a dual purpose, acting as a means of disposing of redundant material and a method of communication between cells. Their natural origin, biocompatibility, protein, and nucleic acid composition boosts superior targeting capabilities. While strong safety profile, intrinsic pleiotropic therapeutic effects, ability to accommodate both lipophilic and hydrophilic agents, and pass through blood–brain barrier makes them exceptional nanocarrier. Several synthetic drug delivery methods have been fabricated and introduced to the market throughout the previous few decades. However, their inefficiency, cytotoxicity, and/or immunogenicity hinder their applications. Evidence demonstrates that EVs play a critical role in major physiological and pathological processes, such as cellular homeostasis, infection propagation, cancer progression, and cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, EVs offer a range of advantages over traditional synthetic carriers, thus paving the way for innovative drug delivery approaches. Although therapeutic applications as carrier is limited due to lack of scalable isolation techniques and efficient drug loading, EVs serve great potential as nanocarriers. The review summarizes and discuss recent progress and challenges associated with development of EVs as nanocarrier.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.ipha.2024.02.004
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