Researchers at the University of Basel have developed an efficient method for the preparation (A new method for the production of therapeutic nanovesicles) of therapeutic nanovesicles, thus fulfilling the important requirements for industrial production. This method also paves the way for research in areas such as cancer immunotherapy.
These so-called extracellular vesicles play an important role in communication between cells and in many cellular functions. When the cells are released from their environment, these “particles” have a membrane that carries a load of signaling molecules, proteins, nucleic acids and lipids. Unfortunately, only small vesicles are produced directly by cells.
Extracellular vesicles for medical applications
The contents of these vesicles vary depending on the origin and location of the cell, such as proteins that are coated on the surface of the vesicles. Researchers use these materials to develop new cancer detection methods, for example based on the analysis of extracellular vesicles isolated from blood samples.
Extracellular vesicles may also play an important role in the development of next-generation therapeutics. Since the vesicles appear naturally, they are flexible and can trigger a variety of reactions in the body.
Therefore, researchers hope to use those substances to affect the immune system, for example to destroy cancer cells. However, until now, the main challenge is the production of many homogeneous vesicles necessary for such studies.
A quick way to more debris
Now, the research team of Professor Jörg Huwyler from the Department of Medicine and the Swiss Institute of Nanosciences (SNI) at the University of Basel has developed an efficient preparation method for extracellular vesicles that deliver up to 100 times more than particles per cell and hours more than one way. They describe the new method in the journal Communications Biology (Nature Portfolio).
“We start the preparatory process by growing cancer cells, in which we induce cell death by adding chemical stress,” explains Claudio Alter, the first author of the study and a doctoral student in the building graduate studies at SNI.
“The cells form vesicles, which leave the parent cell after a few hours.”
With a diameter of 1 to 3 micrometers, these plasma membranes are large enough for therapeutic applications. In this new process, they are filtered several times through a filter to reduce their size.
“After several filters, we get a solution of nanoplasma membrane vesicles (nPMVs) with a diameter of 120 nanometers – exactly what we need for the next applications,” says Alter.
Different places, different apps
The research team then characterized these nPMVs by comparing their size, protein composition and lipid content with that of exosomes, the most commonly used extracellular vesicles today. They also investigated how nPMV interacts with other cells.
In these studies, nanoplasma membrane vesicles showed properties similar to exosomes. Jörg Huwyler explains “their specific load and the presence of membrane binding markers from the parent cell line allow the use of nPMV for therapeutic purposes,” explains Jörg Huwyler.
“At the moment, we often think about the stimulation of the immune system – for example, with vaccination or immunotherapy against cancer.
Source: University of Basel
