Extracellular vesicle (EV)‐based therapies have emerged as a promising means in regenerative medicine. However, the conventional EV therapy strategy displays some limitations, such as inefficient EV production and lack of tissue‐specific repair effects. Here, it is reported that neonatal‐tissue‐derived EV therapy (NEXT) is a potent strategy for precision tissue repair. In brief, large amounts of EVs with higher yield/purity can be readily isolated from desired tissues with less production time/cost compared to the conventional cell‐culture‐based method. Moreover, source factors, such as age and tissue type, can affect the repair efficacy of such tissue‐derived EVs in different tissue injury models (skin wounds and acute kidney injury), and neonatal‐tissue‐derived EVs show superior tissue repair potency compared with adult‐tissue‐derived EVs. Different age‐ or tissue‐type‐derived EVs have distinct composition (e.g., protein) signatures that are likely due to the diverse metabolic patterns of the donor tissues, which may contribute to the specific repair action modes of NEXT in different types of tissue injury. Furthermore, neonatal‐tissue‐derived EVs can be incorporated with bioactive materials for advanced tissue repair. This study highlights that the NEXT strategy may provide a new avenue for precision tissue repair in many types of tissue injury.
Organ fibrosis is a serious health challenge worldwide, and its global incidence and medical burden are increasing dramatically each year. Fibrosis can occur in nearly all major organs and ultimately lead to organ dysfunction. However, current clinical treatments cannot slow or reverse the progression of fibrosis to end-stage organ failure, and thus advanced anti-fibrotic therapeutics are urgently needed. As a type of naturally derived nanovesicle, native extracellular vesicles (EVs) from multiple cell types (e.g., stem cells, immune cells, and tissue cells) have been shown to alleviate organ fibrosis in many preclinical models through multiple effective mechanisms, such as anti-inflammation, pro-angiogenesis, inactivation of myofibroblasts, and fibrinolysis of ECM components. Moreover, the therapeutic potency of native EVs can be further enhanced by multiple engineering strategies, such as genetic modifications, preconditionings, therapeutic reagent-loadings, and combination with functional biomaterials. In this review, we briefly introduce the pathology and current clinical treatments of organ fibrosis, discuss EV biology and production strategies, and particularly focus on important studies using native or engineered EVs as interventions to attenuate tissue fibrosis. This review provides insights into the development and translation of EV-based nanotherapies into clinical applications in the future.
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