Advances in Extracellular Vesicle Nanotechnology for Precision Theranostics

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have increasingly been recognized as important cell surrogates influencing many pathophysiological processes, including cellular homeostasis, cancer progression, neurologic disease, and infectious disease. These behaviors enable EVs broad application prospects for clinical application in disease diagnosis and treatment. Many studies suggest that EVs are superior to conventional synthetic carriers in terms of drug delivery and circulating biomarkers for early disease diagnosis, opening up new frontiers for modern theranostics. Despite these clinical potential, EVs containing diverse cellular components, such as nucleic acids, proteins, and metabolites are highly heterogeneous and small size. The limitation of preparatory, engineering and analytical technologies for EVs poses technical barriers to clinical translation. This article aims at present a critical overview of emerging technologies in EVs field for biomedical applications and challenges involved in their clinic translations. The current methods for isolation and identification of EVs are discussed. Additionally, engineering strategies developed to enhance scalable production and improved cargo loading as well as tumor targeting are presented. The superior clinical potential of EVs, particularly in terms of different cell origins and their application in the next generation of diagnostic and treatment platforms, are clarified.

Automated summary

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important cell surrogates that have wide applications in clinical diagnosis and treatment. However, the heterogeneity and small size of EVs present technical barriers to their clinical translation. This article provides a critical overview of emerging technologies in EVs field for biomedical applications, discusses the current methods for EVs isolation and identification, and presents engineering strategies for scalable production and improved cargo loading. The superior clinical potential of EVs, particularly in terms of different cell origins and their application in the next generation of diagnostic and treatment platforms, is emphasized.