Application of exosomes in tumor immunity: recent progresses

Haiyan Qiu; Junting Liang; Guang Yang; Zhenyu Xie; Zhenpeng Wang; Liyan Wang; Jingying Zhang; Himansu Sekhar Nanda; Hui Zhou; Yong Huang; Xinsheng Peng; Chengyu Lu; Huizhi Chen; Yubin Zhou

doi:10.3389/fcell.2024.1372847

Application of exosomes in tumor immunity: recent progresses

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2024 Apr 3:12:1372847. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1372847. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Haiyan Qiu¹, Junting Liang¹, Guang Yang¹, Zhenyu Xie¹, Zhenpeng Wang¹, Liyan Wang¹, Jingying Zhang², Himansu Sekhar Nanda³, Hui Zhou¹, Yong Huang¹, Xinsheng Peng¹, Chengyu Lu¹, Huizhi Chen^{1

2}, Yubin Zhou^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China.
² The First Dongguan Affiliated Hospital, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China.
³ Biomedical Engineering and Technology Lab, Discipline of Mechanical Engineering, PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing Jabalpur, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India.

Abstract

Exosomes are small extracellular vesicles secreted by cells, ranging in size from 30 to 150 nm. They contain proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and other bioactive molecules, which play a crucial role in intercellular communication and material transfer. In tumor immunity, exosomes present various functions while the following two are of great importance: regulating the immune response and serving as delivery carriers. This review starts with the introduction of the formation, compositions, functions, isolation, characterization, and applications of exosomes, and subsequently discusses the current status of exosomes in tumor immunotherapy, and the recent applications of exosome-based tumor immunity regulation and antitumor drug delivery. Finally, current challenge and future prospects are proposed and hope to demonstrate inspiration for targeted readers in the field.

Keywords: drug delivery; exosomes; extracellular vesicles; immunoregulation; tumor immunity.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work is supported by Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515011831 and 2021B1515140006), Special projects in key areas for general colleges and universities of Guangdong Province (2021ZDZX 2061), Featured Innovation Projects for General Colleges and Universities of Guangdong Province (2022KTSCX042), Medical Scientific Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (A2023241), Funds for PhD Researchers of Guangdong Medical University in 2023 (4SG23184G and 4SG23233G), Funds for PhD Researchers of Guangdong Medical University in 2020 (4SG20204P), College Students’ innovation and entrepreneurship training program (S202210571119, 202210571016, S202210571050, 202310571001, 202310571004, 202310571024), College Students’ innovation experiment program of Guangdong Medical University (FYDM004), Special Fund for Guangdong Province’s Climb Plan (pdjh2023b0229), and Discipline Construction Project of Guangdong Medical University (1019K20220003).