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Updated: Aug 15, 2025
Evaluation of the Storage Stability of Extracellular Vesicles
Published on: May 22, 2019
Can Extracellular Vesicles as Drug Delivery Systems Be a Game Changer in Cardiac Disease?
Akihiko Okamura1,2, Yusuke Yoshioka1, Yoshihiko Saito2
1Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, Institute of Medical Science, Tokyo Medical University, 6-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-Ku, Tokyo, 160-0023, Japan.
Insights
Extracellular vesicles (EVs), particularly exosomes, show promise as cell-free therapies for cardiac diseases. Their natural drug delivery system (DDS) capabilities offer a biocompatible alternative to transplantation, with ongoing clinical exploration.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Medicine
- Regenerative Medicine
- Biotechnology
Background:
- Cardiac diseases remain leading causes of mortality globally.
- Current treatments like heart transplantation are limited by donor availability and cost.
- Stem cell therapies face challenges including immune rejection and tumor formation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the therapeutic potential of extracellular vesicles (EVs) as drug delivery systems (DDS) for cardiac diseases.
- To highlight exosomes as a promising cell-free therapeutic strategy.
- To discuss the advantages of EVs over traditional cell-based therapies.
Main Methods:
- Review of current literature on extracellular vesicles and exosomes in cardiac disease.
- Analysis of exosome properties as natural drug delivery systems.
- Examination of clinical applications and ongoing trials of EVs in cardiology.
Main Results:
- Exosomes, a type of EV, function as natural DDSs, transporting nucleic acids and proteins.
- Their lipid bilayer structure ensures stability in bodily fluids, protecting cargo from degradation.
- EVs offer high biocompatibility and target specificity, overcoming limitations of cell-based therapies.
Conclusions:
- Exosomes represent a viable cell-free therapeutic approach for cardiac conditions.
- Their DDS capabilities are being actively investigated in clinical settings.
- EV-based therapies hold significant potential as alternatives to heart transplantation.
Abstract:
Cardiac diseases such as myocardial infarction and heart failure have been the leading cause of death worldwide for more than 20 years, and new treatments continue to be investigated. Heart transplantation, a curative treatment for severe cardiac dysfunction, is available to only a small number of patients due to the rarity of donors and high costs. Cardiac regenerative medicine using embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells is expected to be a new alternative to heart transplantation, but it has problems such as induction of immune response, tumor formation, and low survival rate of transplanted cells. On the other hand, there has been a focus on cell-free therapy using extracellular vesicles (EVs) due to their high biocompatibility and target specificity. Exosomes, one type of EV, play a role in the molecular transport system in vivo and can be considered a drug delivery system (DDS) innate to all living things. Exosomes contain nucleic acids and proteins, which are transported from secretory cells to recipient cells. Molecules in exosomes are encapsulated in a lipid bilayer, which allows them to exist stably in body fluids without being affected by nuclease degradation enzymes. Therefore, the therapeutic use of exosomes as DDSs has been widely explored and is being used in clinical trials and other clinical settings. This review summarizes the current topics of EVs as DDSs in cardiac disease.
