Exosome-based immunotherapy: a promising approach for cancer treatment
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REVIEW
Open Access
Exosome-based immunotherapy: a promising approach for cancer treatment Zhijie Xu1†, Shuangshuang Zeng2†, Zhicheng Gong2,3 and Yuanliang Yan2*
Abstract In the era of the rapid development of cancer immunotherapy, there is a high level of interest in the application of cell-released small vesicles that stimulate the immune system. As cell-derived nanovesicles, exosomes show great promise in cancer immunotherapy because of their immunogenicity and molecular transfer function. The cargoes carried on exosomes have been recently identified with improved technological advances and play functional roles in the regulation of immune responses. In particular, exosomes derived from tumor cells and immune cells exhibit unique composition profiles that are directly involved in anticancer immunotherapy. More importantly, exosomes can deliver their cargoes to targeted cells and thus influence the phenotype and immune-regulation functions of targeted cells. Accumulating evidence over the last decade has further revealed that exosomes can participate in multiple cellular processes contributing to cancer development and therapeutic effects, showing the dual characteristics of promoting and suppressing cancer. The potential of exosomes in the field of cancer immunotherapy is huge, and exosomes may become the most effective cancer vaccines, as well as targeted antigen/drug carriers. Understanding how exosomes can be utilized in immune therapy is important for controlling cancer progression; additionally, exosomes have implications for diagnostics and the development of novel therapeutic strategies. This review discusses the role of exosomes in immunotherapy as carriers to stimulate an anti-cancer immune response and as predictive markers for immune activation; furthermore, it summarizes the mechanism and clinical application prospects of exosome-based immunotherapy in human cancer. Keywords: Exosomes, Cancer immunotherapy, Cancer vaccines, Immune cells, Clinical implications
Background Cancer is a major public health problem and the leading cause of death globally, and cancer incidence and mortality are rapidly growing worldwide. More than 18 million new cancer cases and 9 million cancer deaths are currently expected each year [1–3]. Common cancer treatments mainly include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted therapy [4]. However, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, as the most important and effective therapeutic strategies for treating cancer, can also cause adverse reactions, drug resistance and long-term complications [5, 6]. Given the * Correspondence: [email protected] † Zhijie Xu and Shuangshuang Zeng contributed equally to this work. 2 Department of Pharmacy, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 87 Xiangya Road, Changsha 410008, Hunan, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
significant advances in drug screening technology, there is now emerging interest in oncology drug development that can overcome these problems by using a new cancer therapy
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