Topic: Extracellular Vesicles in Nervous System Diseases: Pathogenesis and Therapeutic targets
A Special Issue of Extracellular Vesicles and Circulating Nucleic Acids
ISSN 2767-6641 (Online)
Submission deadline: 31 Mar 2024
Guest Editor(s)
Gal Bitan
Professor, Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Sun Young Lee
Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Physiology & Neuroscience, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Special Issue Introduction
In recent years, extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been gained increasing attention as crucial mediators of intercellular communication, a source of biomarkers, and a drug-delivery system. In the nervous system, especially within the central nervous system (CNS), these applications carry significant importance because the blood-brain barrier (BBB) complicates both biomarker analysis and drug delivery.
In the context of biomarkers, EVs secreted by various cell types in the CNS or associated with the nervous system have been isolated successfully from diverse biofluids. The invasiveness of procedures required to obtain these EVs for biomarker analysis is often inversely proportional to their relevance to the brain. Thus, cerebrospinal fluid EVs, which are expected to primarily originate within the CNS, necessitate an invasive lumbar puncture. Serum/plasma EVs contain a smaller fraction of CNS-derived EVs and can be acquired through a minimally invasive blood-draw. EVs from urine, saliva, or tears can be obtained non-invasively but the fraction of CNS-originating EVs in them may be too small or specialized for certain biomarkers.
Thanks to EVs’ innate biocompatibility, which enables them to traverse the BBB and blood-retina barrier, EVs have emerged as a promising vehicle for delivering biologics in the treatment of CNS and ocular diseases. The capability of EVs to transport natural biologic cargoes has been studies most extensively studied in mesenchymal stem cells. Engineered EVs leverage cargo loading techniques to efficiently deliver proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, all of which are of great interest for therapeutic interventions within the nervous system. With rigorous attention to safety and optimization through a deeper understanding of their mechanism of action, these approaches hold great promise and are poised to gain regulatory approval for use in future human therapies.
The physiological role of EVs is the intercellular transfer of material, both over short and long range. As such, EVs promote brain health by facilitating the exchange of vital messages among cells and aiding in the removal of unwanted cellular material for degradation. Simultaneously, EVs may serve as vehicles for the propagation of disease from one cell to another, for example by transporting virus particles or aggregated amyloid proteins that seed further aggregation in recipient cells. All these topics are the subject of this Special Issue, entitled “Extracellular Vesicles in Nervous System Diseases: Pathogenesis and Therapeutic Targets”. We invite submissions of original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, meta-analyses, and opinion papers.
In the context of biomarkers, EVs secreted by various cell types in the CNS or associated with the nervous system have been isolated successfully from diverse biofluids. The invasiveness of procedures required to obtain these EVs for biomarker analysis is often inversely proportional to their relevance to the brain. Thus, cerebrospinal fluid EVs, which are expected to primarily originate within the CNS, necessitate an invasive lumbar puncture. Serum/plasma EVs contain a smaller fraction of CNS-derived EVs and can be acquired through a minimally invasive blood-draw. EVs from urine, saliva, or tears can be obtained non-invasively but the fraction of CNS-originating EVs in them may be too small or specialized for certain biomarkers.
Thanks to EVs’ innate biocompatibility, which enables them to traverse the BBB and blood-retina barrier, EVs have emerged as a promising vehicle for delivering biologics in the treatment of CNS and ocular diseases. The capability of EVs to transport natural biologic cargoes has been studies most extensively studied in mesenchymal stem cells. Engineered EVs leverage cargo loading techniques to efficiently deliver proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, all of which are of great interest for therapeutic interventions within the nervous system. With rigorous attention to safety and optimization through a deeper understanding of their mechanism of action, these approaches hold great promise and are poised to gain regulatory approval for use in future human therapies.
The physiological role of EVs is the intercellular transfer of material, both over short and long range. As such, EVs promote brain health by facilitating the exchange of vital messages among cells and aiding in the removal of unwanted cellular material for degradation. Simultaneously, EVs may serve as vehicles for the propagation of disease from one cell to another, for example by transporting virus particles or aggregated amyloid proteins that seed further aggregation in recipient cells. All these topics are the subject of this Special Issue, entitled “Extracellular Vesicles in Nervous System Diseases: Pathogenesis and Therapeutic Targets”. We invite submissions of original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, meta-analyses, and opinion papers.
Submission Deadline
31 Mar 2024
Submission Information
For Author Instructions, please refer to https://www.oaepublish.com/evcna/author_instructions
For Online Submission, please login at https://oaemesas.com/login?JournalId=evcna&SpecialIssueId=evcna231013
Submission Deadline: 31 Mar 2024
Contacts: Inga Ren, Assistant Editor, EVCNA-editor@oaemesas.com
