Engineering of Exosomes: Steps Towards Green Production of Drug Delivery System

Abdelrahman Y Sherif; Gamaleldin I Harisa; Fars K Alanazi; Abdullah M E Youssof

doi:10.2174/1389450120666190715104100

Engineering of Exosomes: Steps Towards Green Production of Drug Delivery System

Curr Drug Targets. 2019;20(15):1537-1549. doi: 10.2174/1389450120666190715104100.

Authors

Abdelrahman Y Sherif^{1

2}, Gamaleldin I Harisa^{1

2

3}, Fars K Alanazi^{1

2}, Abdullah M E Youssof^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Kayyali Chair for Pharmaceutical Industry, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Biochemistry, College of Pharmacy, Al-Azhar University, Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt.

PMID: 31309889
DOI: 10.2174/1389450120666190715104100

Abstract

Targeting of therapeutic agents to their specific site of action not only increases the treatment efficacy, but also reduces systemic toxicity. Therefore, various drug delivery systems (DDSs) have been developed to achieve this target. However, most of those DDSs have several issues regarding biocompatibility and environmental hazard. In contrast to the synthetic DDSs, exosome-based natural carriers are biocompatible, biodegradable and safe for the environment. Since exosomes play a role in intercellular communication, they have been widely utilized as carriers for different therapeutic agents. This article was aimed to provide an overview of exosomes as an environment-friendly DDS in terms of engineering, isolation, characterization, application and limitation.

Keywords: Drug targeting; biological DDS; bionanocarrier; exosome; green DDS; vesicular carrier..

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Bioengineering / methods*
Drug Delivery Systems*
Exosomes*