Extracellular Vesicles for Cancer Therapy
A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Gene and Cell Therapy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 June 2024 | Viewed by 137
Special Issue Editor
Interests: biology; genetics and epigenetics; molecular biology; extracellular vesicles and biological sciences; health; oncology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In the last few years, extensive research has been conducted on the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in cellular communication and tumor microenvironment modulation. In fact, major intercellular players are involved in physiological and pathological processes, representing the first form of cell-to-cell communication. EVs are nano-sized lipid-bilayer-encapsulated particles that are released by practically all types of cells in the three domains of life. EVs carry several biologically active molecules from parental cells, including proteins, lipids, sugars, DNA and RNA, namely non-coding RNAs, such as microRNAs and long-non-coding RNAs. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that EVs can act both locally and at distant sites through their ability to modulate tumor growth, invasion, angiogenesis, immune inhibition and establishment of pre-metastatic niches. In fact, EVs can circulate to distant organs and induce changes in the microenvironment to potentiate future metastatic spread through horizontally transferring molecular information. Moreover, their stability when circulating in different body fluids and ability to transfer bioactive molecules between cells indicates their potential for the design of new therapeutic approaches.
Therefore, this Special Issue aims to highlight the potential of utilizing EVs in new cancer therapies, covering their characterization, in a functional sense, in the different oncological sets and their potential as therapeutic agents, due to their innate therapeutic properties, or even as engineered therapeutic vehicles for known drugs or vaccines.
Dr. Ana Luísa Teixeira
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- cancer therapy
- extracellular vesicles
- tumor microenvironment
- drug vehicles
- drug design
