ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbiotechnology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1585809
The global state, trajectory and trends of bacterial extracellular vesicles: A bibliometric and visualized analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 2Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
- 3Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
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Bacterial extracellular vesicles (BEVs) are nanoscale biological vesicles secreted by bacteria that carry unique cargo and membrane structures derived from their parental bacteria.In recent years, BEVs have been shown to significantly contribute to the pathogenesis and progression of various diseases, with promising potential as immunotherapeutic agents, drug delivery systems, and nano-vaccines. This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the research status and development trends of BEVs using bibliometric approaches. A total of 2,836 publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection by 30 November 2024 were included in this study. The R package "Bibliometric" and CiteSpace software were employed for bibliometric analysis and visualization of authors, countries/regions, institutions, journals, subject categories, keywords, and references. From 2006 to 2024, the number of publications exhibited a steady upward trend, with an annual growth rate of 15.01%. China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences were identified as the most productive country and institution, respectively. Gho, Yong Song emerged as the most prolific and influential researcher. Cluster analysis of references revealed that outer membrane vesicles, immunotherapy and probiotics are the three largest research clusters. Keyword burst detection identified cancer immunotherapy, the tumor microenvironment, and drug delivery as promising research directions. These findings provide valuable insights into the current state of BEVs research, highlighting the importance of BEV-based drug delivery systems. Future research is expected to focus on tumor immunotherapies and the remodeling of tumor immune microenvironments, which holds considerable promise for advancing the field.
Keywords: Bibliometric, Bacterial extracellular vesicles, outer membrane vesicles, Drug delivery, Immunotherapy, Nano-materials Ranking Institution Count BC
Received: 01 Mar 2025; Accepted: 19 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Xie, Cai, Xin, Yao, Xu and Zhou. 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:
Hong Xu, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
Zongke Zhou, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 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.