Recent Advancement and Technical Challenges in Developing Small Extracellular Vesicles for Cancer Drug Delivery

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a heterogeneous population of lipid bilayer membrane-enclosed vesicles and act like 'messages in a bottle' in cell-cell communication by transporting their cargoes to recipient cells. Small EVs (sEVs, < 200 nm) are highly researched recently and have been harnessed as novel delivery systems for the treatment of various diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and most importantly cancer primarily because of their non-immunogenicity, tissue penetration and cell-tropism. This review will first provide a comprehensive overview of sEVs regarding the current understanding on their properties, biogenesis, new classification by the ISEV, composition, as well as their roles in cancer development (thereby called "oncosomes"). The primary focus will be given to the current state of sEVs as natural nanocarriers for cancer drug delivery, the technologies and challenges involved in sEV isolation and characterization, therapeutic cargo loading, and surface modification to enhance tumor-targeting. We will also provide examples of sEV products under clinical trials. Furthermore, the current challenges as well as the advance in "sEV mimetics" to address some of the sEVs limitations is briefly discussed. We seek to advance our understanding of sEVs to unlock their full potential as superior drug delivery vehicles in cancer therapy.

Keywords: biogenesis; cancer drug delivery; drug loading; functionalisation; small extracellular vesicles.