Exosomes in Alzheimer's Disease: From Being Pathological Players to Potential Diagnostics and Therapeutics

Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Oct 6;22(19):10794. doi: 10.3390/ijms221910794.

Abstract

Exosomes (EXOs) were given attention as an extracellular vesicle (EV) with a pivotal pathophysiological role in the development of certain neurodegenerative disorders (NDD), such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease (AD). EXOs have shown the potential to carry pathological and therapeutic cargo; thus, researchers have harnessed EXOs in drug delivery applications. EXOs have shown low immunogenicity as natural drug delivery vehicles, thus ensuring efficient drug delivery without causing significant adverse reactions. Recently, EXOs provided potential drug delivery opportunities in AD and promising future clinical applications with the diagnosis of NDD and were studied for their usefulness in disease detection and prediction prior to the emergence of symptoms. In the future, the microfluidics technique will play an essential role in isolating and detecting EXOs to diagnose AD before the development of advanced symptoms. This review is not reiterative literature but will discuss why EXOs have strong potential in treating AD and how they can be used as a tool to predict and diagnose this disorder.

Keywords: cargo; diagnosis; drug delivery; exosomes; microfluidics; neurodegenerative disorders; treatment.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease / diagnosis*
  • Alzheimer Disease / therapy*
  • Animals
  • Exosomes / chemistry*
  • Exosomes / pathology*
  • Humans