Herpesviruses are remarkable pathogens that have evolved multiple mechanisms to evade host immunity, ensuring their proliferation and egress. Among these mechanisms, herpesviruses utilize elaborate extracellular vesicles, including exosomes, for the intricate interplay between infected host and recipient cells. Herpesviruses incorporate genome expression products and direct cellular products into exosomal cargoes. These components alter the content and function of exosomes released from donor cells, thus affecting the downstream signalings of recipient cells. In this way, herpesviruses hijack exosomal pathways to ensure their survival and persistence, and exosomes are emerging as critical mediators for virus infection-associated intercellular communication and microenvironment alteration. In this review, the function and effects of exosomes in herpesvirus infection will be discussed, so that we will have a better understanding about the pathogenesis of herpesviruses.
Keywords: extracellular vesicles (EVs); herpesviruses; infection; pathogenesis.