Tumor-derived extracellular vesicles: Potential tool for cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy

Various types of cancer pose a notable threat to human health globally. To date, many researchers have undertaken the search for anticancer therapies. However, many anticancer therapeutic approaches accompany many undesirable hazards. In this respect, extracellular vesicles as a whole gained excessive attention from the research community owing to their remarkable potential for delivery of anticancer agents since they are involved in distal intercellular communication via biological cargoes. With the discovery of the fact that tumor cells discharge huge quantities of EVs, new insights have been developed in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (TD-EVs) can be distinguished from the normal cell-derived EVs due to the presence of specific labels on their surface. TD-EVs carry specific oncogenic proteins and the nucleic acids on their surface membrane that participate in tumor progression. Moreover, the proportion of these nucleic acids and the protein greatly varies among malignant and healthy cell-derived EVs. The diagnostic potential of TD-EVs can be implied for the more precise and early-stage detection of cancer that was impossible in the past. This review examines the recent progress in prognostic, diagnostic, and therapeutic potential of the EVs derived from the tumor cells.