Unlocking the Medicinal Potential of Plant-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: current Progress and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Botanical preparations for herbal medicine have received more and more attention from drug researchers, and the extraction of active ingredients and their successful clinical application have become an important direction of drug research in major pharmaceutical companies, but the complexity of extracts, multiple side effects, and significant individual differences have brought many difficulties to the clinical application of herbal preparations. It is noteworthy that extracellular vesicles as active biomolecules extracted from medicinal plants are believed to be useful for the treatment of a variety of diseases, including cancer, inflammation, regenerative-restorative and degenerative diseases, which may provide a new direction for the clinical utilization of herbal preparations. In this review, we sort out recent advances in medicinal plant extracellular vesicles and discuss their potential as disease therapeutics. Finally, future challenges and research directions for the clinical translation of medicinal plant extracellular vesicles are also discussed, and we expect that continued development based on medicinal plant extracellular vesicles will facilitate the clinical application of herbal preparations.

Keywords: Chinese medicine preparation; drug delivery nanoplatforms; nanoparticle; nanotherapeutics; plant-derived extracellular vesicles.

Figure 1

Formation of extracellular vesicles and secretory processes in plants. Data from Lian et al. Created with Biorender.com.

Figure 2

Plant-derived extracellular vesicles can be used to treat diseases directly or to treat specific diseases with modified modifications. Created with Biorender.com.