Extracellular vesicles for the treatment of central nervous system diseases

The interest in extracellular vesicles (EVs) increased during the last decade. It is now established that these vesicles play a role in the pathogenesis of central nervous system diseases (CNS), which explains why they are studied as biomarkers in these pathologies. On the other hand, EVs can also present ther-apeutic properties, often similar to their parent cells, as observed with mesenchymal stem cell-derived EVs. They can then be used as therapeutics, alone or combined with a bioactive molecule, for the treat-ment of CNS diseases, as they can cross the blood-brain barrier more easily than synthetic nanomedici-nes and are less immunogenic. A few clinical trials are currently on-going but there are still challenges to overcome for further clinical translation such as the scale-up of the production, the lack of standardiza-tion for isolation and characterization methods and the low encapsulation efficiency. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have gained increasing interest over the past decade for their roles in the pathogenesis of central nervous system diseases (CNS) and their therapeutic properties; they can potentially be used as therapeutic agents for CNS diseases due to their ability to cross the blood-brain barrier.