Exosomes: Nanocarriers of Biological Messages

Abstract

Cell-cell communication is crucial to maintain homeostasis in multicellular organism. Cells communicate each other by direct contact or by releasing factors that, soluble or packaged in membrane vesicles, can reach different regions of the organism. To date numerous studies highlighted the existence of several types of extracellular vesicles that, differing for dimension, origin and contents, play a role in physiological and/or pathological processes. Among extracellular vesicles, exosomes are emerging as efficient players to modulate target cells phenotype and as new non-invasive diagnostic and prognostic tools in multiple diseases. They, in fact, strictly reflect the type and functional status of the producing cells and are able to deliver their contents even over a long distance. The results accumulated in the last two decades and collected in this chapter, indicated that exosomes, can carry RNAs, microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, DNA, lipids, metabolites and proteins; a deeper understanding of their contents is therefore needed to get the most from this incredible cell product.