Gewebe Engineering

The concept that small extracellular vesicles (sEVs; 30–200 nm in diameter) can deliver cargo to the nucleus has gained increasing attention in recent years. Several features of this process echo aspects of retroviral infection, even though EVs lack replicative capacity. These parallels have revived interest in the “Trojan exosome” hypothesis (Gould et al., 2003), which posits that sEVs and retroviruses exploit overlapping biogenesis routes and share key functional traits.

Intercellular communication is an essential hallmark of multicellular organisms for their development and adult tissue homeostasis. Over the past two decades, attention has been focused on communication mechanisms based on various membrane structures, as illustrated by the burst of scientific literature in the field of extracellular vesicles (EVs). These lipid bilayer-bound nano- or microparticles, as vehicle-like devices, act as regulators in various biological and physiological processes.

Extracellular membrane vesicles (EVs) offer promising values in various medical fields, e.g., as biomarkers in liquid biopsies or as native (or bioengineered) biological nanocarriers in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and cancer therapy. Based on their cellular origin EVs can vary considerably in composition and diameter.