Exosomes - tiny biological nanoparticles which transfer
Areas which could benefit include cancer treatment and regenerative medicine, say Dr Steven Conlan from Swansea University, Dr Mauro Ferrari of Houston Methodist Research Institute in Texas, and Dr Inês Mendes Pinto from the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal. Their commissioned paper, Exosomes as Reconfigurable Therapeutic Systems, is published today by Cell Press in Trends in Molecular Medicine.
Exosomes are particles produced by all cells in the body and are from 30-130 nanometres in size - a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre. They act as biological signalling systems, communicating between cells, carrying proteins, lipids, DNA and RNA. They drive biological processes, from modulating gene expression to transmitting information through breast milk.
Though discovered in 1983, the full potential of exosomes is only gradually being revealed. The researchers show that the nanoparticles' possible medical benefits fall into three broad categories:
- Detecting disease - by acting as disease-specific biomarkers
- Activating immune responses to boost immunity
- Treating diseases - serving as the vehicle for drugs, for example bearing cancer therapies as their payload, to target tumours
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-tiny-nanoparticles-significant-potential-detectingtreating.html#jCp
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