Exosomes and exosome-like nanoparticles: applications for biomedicine

Abstract

With the rise of the average life expectancy in the last century, the prevalence of life-threatening diseases has greatly increased. Thus, the need for effective, cost efficient and easy to produce therapeutic systems, combined with recent technological advances, boosted nanotechnology research. Since their discovery more than 30 years ago, naturally occurring exosomes are an increasingly interesting vehicle for drug delivery, with the disadvantage that they are difficult and expensive to extract, characterize and their encapsulation efficiency is poor. Liposomes, known since the mid-60’s, can be used for various types of therapies for their capacity to encapsulate almost any molecule, with efficient production and encapsulation processes, but are less biocompatible. A new type of systems, exosome-like nanoparticles, that combine the advantages of these two systems, mitigating their limitations, show potential to be excellent therapeutic options with almost no side-effects.