Liver extracellular vesicles in health and disease

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play an important role in cell-to-cell communication. Although there are different kinds of vesicles, each with their own secretion and capture biology, all of them carry a cargo of proteins, lipids, metabolites and nucleic acids. They act as vehicles for exchange of biological materials and signals and are involved in the regulation of various physiological processes. Liver is an essential organ containing different cell populations fulfilling various functions, which need to be strictly controlled and coordinated. There are a few articles showing the role of liver-derived EVs. On the basis of them, we present here a hypothesis of the implication of such vesicles in the physiology of the liver. Different liver cell types, including hepatocytes, cholangiocytes and stellate cells, secrete and capture EVs and interact with them. Liver injury changes the abundance and cargo of EVs; these changes are likely to be important for the outcome of stress response. Although a substantial effort has been put into the characterization of EVs in isolated populations, it is only recently that some more comprehensive information has begun to appear. In this article, we hypothesize about the role of EVs in liver microenvironment and their possible function using published data from both hepatic and non-hepatic systems.