REVIEW article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Cell and Gene Therapy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1600227
Extracellular Vesicles as Vital Players in Drug Delivery: A Focus on Clinical Disease Treatment
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
- 2First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
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Extracellular vesicles (EVs), a diverse population of bilayer lipid-membrane vesicles secreted by cells, have emerged as ideal drug carriers due to their efficient cellular uptake and targeted delivery capabilities. Advancements in medical and bioengineering collaborations have enabled EVs to be engineered for specific marker expression or therapeutic cargo transport, positioning them as a promising modality for treating cancer, neurological disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and beyond. EV-based drug delivery strategies offer distinct advantages, including facilitation of intercellular communication and immune modulation, high biocompatibility and stability, the ability to traverse the blood-brain barrier, and potential synergistic interactions with encapsulated therapeutics to enhance efficacy. This review explores EV isolation and scalable production, emphasizing costeffective and reproducible manufacturing strategies, cargo-loading methodologies, and therapeutic applications. Additionally, the current landscape of EV-based targeted drug delivery, clinical translation prospects, and prevailing challenges are examined to provide a comprehensive perspective on their potential in drug delivery systems.
Keywords: extracellular vesicles, Drug Delivery Systems, separation and loading technology, clinical disease treatment, targeting Article types：Review
Received: 26 Mar 2025; Accepted: 29 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Chen, Su, Liang, Liu and Cai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiangning Liu, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
Mingxiang Cai, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.