The high prevalence and complex etiology of renal diseases already impose a heavy disease burden on patients and society. In certain kidney diseases such as acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease, current treatments are limited to slowing rather than stabilizing or reversing disease progression. Therefore, it is crucial to study the pathological mechanisms of kidney disease and discover new therapeutic targets and effective therapeutic drugs. As cell-free therapeutic strategies are continually being developed, extracellular vesicles derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSC-EVs) have emerged as a hot topic for research in the field of renal diseases. Studies have demonstrated that MSC-EVs not only reproduce the therapeutic effects of MSCs but also localize to damaged kidney tissue. Compared to MSCs, MSC-EVs have several advantages, including ease of preservation, low immunogenicity, an inability to directly form tumors, and ease of artificial modification. Exploring the detailed mechanisms of MSC-EVs by developing standardized culture, isolation, purification, and drug delivery strategies will help facilitate their clinical application in kidney diseases. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of studies about MSC-EVs in kidney diseases and discuss their limitations at the human nephrology level.
Keywords: acute kidney injury; chronic kidney disease; extracellular vesicles; kidney transplantation; mesenchymal stem cells.
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.