Exosomes and autophagy in ocular surface and retinal diseases: new insights into pathophysiology and treatment

Abstract

Background Ocular surface and retinal diseases are widespread problems that cannot be ignored in today’s society. However, existing prevention and treatment still have many shortcomings and limitations, and fail to effectively hinder the occurrence and development of them. Main body The purpose of this review is to give a detailed description of the potential mechanism of exosomes and autophagy. The eukaryotic endomembrane system refers to a range of membrane-bound organelles in the cytoplasm that are interconnected structurally and functionally, which regionalize and functionalize the cytoplasm to meet the needs of cells under different conditions. Exosomal biogenesis and autophagy are two important components of this system and are connected by lysosomal pathways. Exosomes are extracellular vesicles that contain multiple signaling molecules produced by multivesicular bodies derived from endosomes. Autophagy includes lysosome-dependent degradation and recycling pathways of cells or organelles. Recent studies have revealed that there is a common molecular mechanism between exosomes and autophagy, which have been, respectively, confirmed to involve in ocular surface and retinal diseases. Conclusion The relationship between exosomes and autophagy and is mostly focused on fundus diseases, while a deeper understanding of them will provide new directions for the pathological mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment of ocular surface and retinal diseases.

Extracellular vesicles as a new horizon in the diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory eye diseases: A narrative review of the literature

“…Therefore, corneal transplantation (keratoplasty) has been suggested as an effective therapeutic strategy that can restore vision and corneal integrity ( 64 , 94 ). However, the risk of several complications (particularly immunological rejection) still remains and threatens graft acceptance ( 71 ).…”

“…showed that mouse corneal epithelial cell-derived Exos might induce stromal fibroblast differentiation into myofibroblasts and play an essential role in corneal wound healing ( 70 ). Epithelial-derived Exos carry proteins like thrombospondin-2, latent-transforming growth factor beta-binding protein 1, C–X–C motif chemokine 5, and C-C motif chemokine 2, which are involved in wound healing and neovascularization ( 70 , 71 ). Moreover, corneal fibroblasts secrete Exos that contain matrix metalloproteinase 14 (MMP14), which enhances corneal angiogenesis via degenerating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor 1 and VEGF-induced proliferation and migration of endothelial cells ( 72 , 73 ).…”

The role of mitophagy in metabolic diseases and its exercise intervention

“…Autophagy is a highly conserved self-protective mechanism that maintains cellular and metabolic homeostasis by engulfing damaged and senescent organelles or pathogens and encapsulating them into vesicles, fusing them with lysosomes to form autophagic lysosomes, and degrading, recycling, and reusing their internal metabolites (Galluzzi et al, 2017;Dikic and Elazar, 2018). According to the different degradation mechanisms, autophagy can be divided into three types: macroautophagy, microautophagy, and molecular chaperone-mediated autophagy (Andrade-Tomaz et al, 2020;Ma S. et al, 2022). Mitochondrial autophagy (Mitophagy), which belongs to one of the types of macroautophagy and was first proposed by Lemasters in 2005, is an intracellular mechanism of selective degradation targeting dysfunctional mitochondria.…”