Potential Use of Extracellular Vesicles Generated by Microbubble-Assisted Ultrasound as Drug Nanocarriers for Cancer Treatment

Yuana Yuana, Banuja Balachandran, Kim M G van der Wurff-Jacobs, Raymond M Schiffelers, Chrit T Moonen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

10 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs)-carrying biomolecules derived from parental cells have achieved substantial scientific interest for their potential use as drug nanocarriers. Ultrasound (US) in combination with microbubbles (MB) have been shown to trigger the release of EVs from cancer cells. In the current study, the use of microbubbles-assisted ultrasound (USMB) to generate EVs containing drug cargo was investigated. The model drug, CellTracker™ green fluorescent dye (CTG) or bovine serum albumin conjugated with fluorescein isothiocyanate (BSA FITC) was loaded into primary human endothelial cells in vitro using USMB. We found that USMB loaded CTG and BSA FITC into human endothelial cells (HUVECs) and triggered the release of EVs containing these compounds in the cell supernatant within 2 h after treatment. The amount of EV released seemed to be correlated with the increase of US acoustic pressure. Co-culturing these EVs resulted in uptake by the recipient tumour cells within 4 h. In conclusion, USMB was able to load the model drugs into endothelial cells and simultaneously trigger the release of EVs-carrying model drugs, highlighting the potential of EVs as drug nanocarriers for future drug delivery in cancer.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3024
JournalInternational journal of molecular sciences
Volume21
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Apr 2020

Keywords

  • Drug delivery
  • Extracellular vesicles
  • Lysosome
  • Nanocarriers
  • Ultrasound

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Potential Use of Extracellular Vesicles Generated by Microbubble-Assisted Ultrasound as Drug Nanocarriers for Cancer Treatment'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this