Extracellular vesicles for the treatment of central nervous system diseases

The interest in extracellular vesicles (EVs) increased during the last decade. It is now established that these vesicles play a role in the pathogenesis of central nervous system diseases (CNS), which explains why they are studied as biomarkers in these pathologies. On the other hand, EVs can also present ther-apeutic properties, often similar to their parent cells, as observed with mesenchymal stem cell-derived EVs. They can then be used as therapeutics, alone or combined with a bioactive molecule, for the treat-ment of CNS diseases, as they can cross the blood-brain barrier more easily than synthetic nanomedici-nes and are less immunogenic. A few clinical trials are currently on-going but there are still challenges to overcome for further clinical translation such as the scale-up of the production, the lack of standardiza-tion for isolation and characterization methods and the low encapsulation efficiency. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.