Engineering of HN3 increases the tumor targeting specificity of exosomes and upgrade the anti-tumor effect of sorafenib on HuH-7 cells

Extracellular vesicles in cancer therapy: Roles, potential application, and challenges

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a novel cell-free strategy for the treatment of many diseases including cancer as they play important roles in cancer development and progression. Considering their natural capacity to facilitate cell-to-cell communication as well as their high physiochemical stability and biocompatibility, EVs serve as superior delivery systems for a wide range of therapeutic agents, including medicines, nanomaterials, nucleic acids, and proteins. Therefore, EVs-based cancer therapy is of greater interest to researchers. Mounting studies indicate that EVs can be improved in efficiency, specificity, and safety for cancer therapy. However, their heterogeneity of physicochemical properties and functions is not fully understood, hindering the achievement of bioactive EVs with high yield and purity. Herein, we paid more attention to the EVs applications and their significance in cancer therapy.

Engineered exosomes in emerging cell-free therapy

The discovery and use of exosomes ushered in a new era of cell-free therapy. Exosomes are a subgroup of extracellular vesicles that show great potential in disease treatment. Engineered exosomes. with their improved functions have attracted intense interests of their application in translational medicine research. However, the technology of engineering exosomes still faces many challenges which have been the great limitation for their clinical application. This review summarizes the current status of research on engineered exosomes and the difficulties encountered in recent years, with a view to providing new approaches and ideas for future exosome modification and new drug development.

Engineered extracellular vesicles mediated CRISPR-induced deficiency of IQGAP1/FOXM1 reverses sorafenib resistance in HCC by suppressing cancer stem cells

BACKGROUND

Sorafenib resistance poses therapeutic challenges in HCC treatment, in which cancer stem cells (CSCs) plays a crucial role. CRISPR/Cas9 can be utilized as a potential technique to overcome the drug resistance. However, a safe, efficient and target specific delivery of this platform remains challenging. Extracellular vesicles (EVs), the active components of cell to cell communication, hold promising benefits as delivery platform.

RESULTS

Herein we report the normal epithelial cell -derived EVs engineered with HN3(HLC9-EVs) show competing tumor targeting ability. Anchoring HN3 to the membrane of the EVs through LAMP2, drastically increased the specific homing of HLC9-EVs to GPC3⁺Huh-7 cancer cells rather than co-cultured GPC3^-LO2 cells. Combination therapy of HCC with sorafenib and HLC9-EVs containing sgIF to silence IQGAP1 (protein responsible for reactivation of Akt/PI3K signaling in sorafenib resistance) and FOXM1 (self-renewal transcription factor in CSCs attributed to sorafenib resistance), exhibited effective synergistic anti-cancer effect both in vitro and in vivo. Our results also showed that disruption of IQGAP1/FOXM1 resulted in the reduction of CD133⁺ population that contribute to the stemness of liver cancer cells.

CONCLUSION

By reversing sorafenib resistance using combination therapeutic approach with engineered EVs encapsulated CRISPR/Cas9 and sorafenib, our study foreshadows a path for a better, accurate, reliable and successful anti-cancer therapy in the future.

Engineered exosomes from different sources for cancer-targeted therapy

Exosome is a subgroup of extracellular vesicles, which has been serving as an efficient therapeutic tool for various diseases. Engineered exosomes are the sort of exosomes modified with surface decoration and internal therapeutic molecules. After appropriate modification, engineered exosomes are able to deliver antitumor drugs to tumor sites efficiently and precisely with fewer treatment-related adverse effects. However, there still exist many challenges for the clinical translation of engineered exosomes. For instance, what sources and modification strategies could endow exosomes with the most efficient antitumor activity is still poorly understood. Additionally, how to choose appropriately engineered exosomes in different antitumor therapies is another unresolved problem. In this review, we summarized the characteristics of engineered exosomes, especially the spatial and temporal properties. Additionally, we concluded the recent advances in engineered exosomes in the cancer fields, including the sources, isolation technologies, modification strategies, and labeling and imaging methods of engineered exosomes. Furthermore, the applications of engineered exosomes in different antitumor therapies were summarized, such as photodynamic therapy, gene therapy, and immunotherapy. Consequently, the above provides the cancer researchers in this community with the latest ideas on engineered exosome modification and new direction of new drug development, which is prospective to accelerate the clinical translation of engineered exosomes for cancer-targeted therapy.

New Therapeutics for Extracellular Vesicles: Delivering CRISPR for Cancer Treatment

Cancers are defined by genetic defects, which underlines the prospect of using gene therapy in patient care. During the past decade, CRISPR technology has rapidly evolved into a powerful gene editing tool with high fidelity and precision. However, one of the impediments slowing down the clinical translation of CRISPR-based gene therapy concerns the lack of ideal delivery vectors. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nano-sized membrane sacs naturally released from nearly all types of cells. Although EVs are secreted for bio-information conveyance among cells or tissues, they have been recognized as superior vectors for drug or gene delivery. Recently, emerging evidence has spotlighted EVs in CRISPR delivery towards cancer treatment. In this review, we briefly introduce the biology and function of the CRISPR system and follow this with a summary of current delivery methods for CRISPR applications. We emphasize the recent progress in EV-mediated CRISPR editing for various cancer types and target genes. The reported strategies for constructing EV-CRISPR vectors, as well as their limitations, are discussed in detail. The review aims to throw light on the clinical potential of engineered EVs and encourage the expansion of our available toolkit to defeat cancer.

Pleiotropic effects of DCLK1 in cancer and cancer stem cells

Doublecortin-like kinase 1 (DCLK1), a protein molecule, has been identified as a tumor stem cell marker in the cancer cells of gastrointestinal, pancreas, and human colon. DCLK1 expression in cancers, such as breast carcinoma, lung carcinoma, hepatic cell carcinoma, tuft cells, and human cholangiocarcinoma, has shown a way to target the DCLK1 gene and downregulate its expression. Several studies have discussed the inhibition of tumor cell proliferation along with neoplastic cell arrest when the DCLK1 gene, which is expressed in both cancer and normal cells, was targeted successfully. In addition, previous studies have shown that DCLK1 plays a vital role in various cancer metastases. The correlation of DCLK1 with numerous stem cell receptors, signaling pathways, and genes suggests its direct or an indirect role in promoting tumorigenesis. Moreover, the impact of DCLK1 was found to be related to the functioning of an oncogene. The downregulation of DCLK1 expression by using targeted strategies, such as embracing the use of siRNA, miRNA, CRISPR/Cas9 technology, nanomolecules, specific monoclonal antibodies, and silencing the pathways regulated by DCLK1, has shown promising results in both in vitro and in vivo studies on gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. In this review, we will discuss about the present understanding of DCLK1 and its role in the progression of GI cancer and metastasis.

Emerging role of exosomes in cancer progression and tumor microenvironment remodeling

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and the factors responsible for its progression need to be elucidated. Exosomes are structures with an average size of 100 nm that can transport proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. This review focuses on the role of exosomes in cancer progression and therapy. We discuss how exosomes are able to modulate components of the tumor microenvironment and influence proliferation and migration rates of cancer cells. We also highlight that, depending on their cargo, exosomes can suppress or promote tumor cell progression and can enhance or reduce cancer cell response to radio- and chemo-therapies. In addition, we describe how exosomes can trigger chronic inflammation and lead to immune evasion and tumor progression by focusing on their ability to transfer non-coding RNAs between cells and modulate other molecular signaling pathways such as PTEN and PI3K/Akt in cancer. Subsequently, we discuss the use of exosomes as carriers of anti-tumor agents and genetic tools to control cancer progression. We then discuss the role of tumor-derived exosomes in carcinogenesis. Finally, we devote a section to the study of exosomes as diagnostic and prognostic tools in clinical courses that is important for the treatment of cancer patients. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of the role of exosomes in cancer therapy, focusing on their therapeutic value in cancer progression and remodeling of the tumor microenvironment.

Cell-derived biomimetic nanocarriers for targeted cancer therapy: cell membranes and extracellular vesicles

Nanotechnology provides synthetic carriers for cancer drug delivery that protect cargos from degradation, control drug release and increase local accumulation at tumors. However, these non-natural vehicles display poor tumor targeting and potential toxicity and are eliminated by the immune system. Recently, biomimetic nanocarriers have been widely developed based on the concept of ‘mimicking nature.’ Among them, cell-derived biomimetic vehicles have become the focus of bionics research because of their multiple natural functions, such as low immunogenicity, long circulation time and targeting ability. Cell membrane-coated carriers and extracellular vesicles are two widely used cell-based biomimetic materials. Here, this review summarizes the latest progress in the application of these two biomimetic carriers in targeted cancer therapy. Their properties and performance are compared, and their future challenges and development prospects are discussed.