Strategies to improve the therapeutic efficacy of mesenchymal stem cell-derived extracellular vesicle (MSC-EV): a promising cell-free therapy for liver disease

Lijuan Zheng; Hui Gong; Jing Zhang; Linna Guo; Zhuofan Zhai; Shuang Xia; Zhiyu Hu; Jing Chang; Yizhu Jiang; Xinran Huang; Jingyi Ge; Bikui Zhang; Miao Yan

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1322514

Strategies to improve the therapeutic efficacy of mesenchymal stem cell-derived extracellular vesicle (MSC-EV): a promising cell-free therapy for liver disease

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Dec 13:11:1322514. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1322514. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Lijuan Zheng^#^{1

2}, Hui Gong^#^{1

2

3}, Jing Zhang⁴, Linna Guo^{1

2

3}, Zhuofan Zhai⁵, Shuang Xia^{1

2

3}, Zhiyu Hu^{1

2

3}, Jing Chang⁵, Yizhu Jiang⁵, Xinran Huang⁵, Jingyi Ge⁵, Bikui Zhang^{1

2

3}, Miao Yan^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacy, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
² Institute of Clinical Pharmacy, Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ International Research Center for Precision Medicine, Transformative Technology and Software Services, Changsha, China.
⁴ Xiangya School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁵ Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Liver disease has emerged as a significant worldwide health challenge due to its diverse causative factors and therapeutic complexities. The majority of liver diseases ultimately progress to end-stage liver disease and liver transplantation remains the only effective therapy with the limitations of donor organ shortage, lifelong immunosuppressants and expensive treatment costs. Numerous pre-clinical studies have revealed that extracellular vesicles released by mesenchymal stem cells (MSC-EV) exhibited considerable potential in treating liver diseases. Although natural MSC-EV has many potential advantages, some characteristics of MSC-EV, such as heterogeneity, uneven therapeutic effect, and rapid clearance in vivo constrain its clinical translation. In recent years, researchers have explored plenty of ways to improve the therapeutic efficacy and rotation rate of MSC-EV in the treatment of liver disease. In this review, we summarized current strategies to enhance the therapeutic potency of MSC-EV, mainly including optimization culture conditions in MSC or modifications of MSC-EV, aiming to facilitate the development and clinical application of MSC-EV in treating liver disease.

Keywords: bioengineering; extracellular vesicle; liver disease; mesenchymal stem cell; therapeutic efficacy.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81974532), the Hunan Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 2022JJ10097), the Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hunan Province (No. 21B0014) and the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 2022JJ80107).