1. Academic Validation
  2. Tumour-derived small extracellular vesicles act as a barrier to therapeutic nanoparticle delivery

Tumour-derived small extracellular vesicles act as a barrier to therapeutic nanoparticle delivery

  • Nat Mater. 2024 Sep 2. doi: 10.1038/s41563-024-01961-6.
Ningqiang Gong # 1 2 Wenqun Zhong # 3 Mohamad-Gabriel Alameh # 4 Xuexiang Han 1 Lulu Xue 1 Rakan El-Mayta 1 Gan Zhao 5 Andrew E Vaughan 5 Zhiyuan Qin 3 Fengyuan Xu 3 Alex G Hamilton 1 Dongyoon Kim 1 Junchao Xu 1 Junhyong Kim 3 Xucong Teng 6 Jinghong Li 6 Xing-Jie Liang 7 Drew Weissman 8 9 Wei Guo 10 Michael J Mitchell 11 12 13 14 15 16
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 2 Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, Center for BioAnalytical Chemistry, Hefei National Research Center for Physical Science at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
  • 3 Department of Biology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 4 Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 5 Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 6 Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
  • 7 Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, China.
  • 8 Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. dreww@upenn.edu.
  • 9 Penn institute for RNA innovation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. dreww@upenn.edu.
  • 10 Department of Biology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. guowei@sas.upenn.edu.
  • 11 Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mjmitch@seas.upenn.edu.
  • 12 Penn institute for RNA innovation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mjmitch@seas.upenn.edu.
  • 13 Abramson Cancer Center, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mjmitch@seas.upenn.edu.
  • 14 Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mjmitch@seas.upenn.edu.
  • 15 Cardiovascular Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mjmitch@seas.upenn.edu.
  • 16 Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mjmitch@seas.upenn.edu.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

Nanoparticles are promising for drug delivery applications, with several clinically approved products. However, attaining high nanoparticle accumulation in solid tumours remains challenging. Here we show that tumour cell-derived small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) block nanoparticle delivery to tumours, unveiling another barrier to nanoparticle-based tumour therapy. Tumour cells secrete large amounts of sEVs in the tumour microenvironment, which then bind to nanoparticles entering tumour tissue and traffic them to liver Kupffer cells for degradation. Knockdown of Rab27a, a gene that controls sEV secretion, decreases sEV levels and improves nanoparticle accumulation in tumour tissue. The therapeutic efficacy of messenger RNAs encoding tumour suppressing and proinflammatory proteins is greatly improved when co-encapsulated with Rab27a small interfering RNA in lipid nanoparticles. Together, our results demonstrate that tumour cell-derived sEVs act as a defence system against nanoparticle tumour delivery and that this system may be a potential target for improving nanoparticle-based tumour therapies.

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