Research Progress of Glycoconjugates on Extracellular Vesicles

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a kind of membrane-bound particles with diameters ranging from 20 to 1 000 nm which can be uptaken by recipient cells. More and more research have focused on biological functions of EVs in disease diagnose, prognosis and drug delivery. It has been proved that EVs participate in cell-cell communication and material transfer directly. Nucleic acids (mRNA, microRNA and lncRNA)and proteins contained in EVs have significant influences on the behaviors of target cells. The surface of EVs is covered by glycoconjugates such as proteoglycans, glycosphingolipids and glycoproteins. And these glycoconjugates are directly associated with cell-cell adhesion, cell-cell communication, cell-matrix interactions, immune modulation, metastasis formation and others. This review summarizes the recent research progress of glycoconjugates on Evs, and is helpful to extensively understand the effects of glycosylation in the process of EVs' biosynthesis, release and transport and EVs' biological functions.