An update on Exosomes as Drug Delivery Vehicles: Obstacles to its Clinical Translation

Exosomes are membrane vesicles with a diameter of 40-100 nm that are secreted by many cell types into the extracellular milieu. Exosomeshave great potential to be drug delivery vehicles due to their natural material transportation properties, intrinsic long-term circulatory capability,and excellent biocompatibility, which are suitable for delivering a variety of chemicals, proteins, nucleic acids, and gene therapeutic agents.However, there are still some issues and challenges that need to be addressed including production of exosomes in large scale for clinical use,which cell type to use for exosome derivation, and determination of in vivo exosome potency and toxicology. The clinical translation of exosomaltherapeutics warrants better understanding of exosome biology and function, and the development of nanotechnologies for the specificpurification of well-characterised clinical-grade exosomes and their loading with a variety of therapeutic cargoes.