Extracellular Vesicles in Cardiovascular Biology and Therapeutics

Dear Colleagues, 

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-bound organelles secreted by almost every cell type. EVs carry selectively packaged bioactive molecules such as proteins, RNA and DNA. The ability of EVs to disseminate bioactive molecules from one cell (host) to another cell (recipient) makes EVs attractive therapeutic candidates. For instance, microRNAs (miRNAs) are one of the RNA classes which are predominantly carried by EVs, and these miRNA contents are thought to mediate biologically meaningful communication between host and recipient cells under both physiological and pathological conditions. 

The protein and miRNA contents of EVs are both quantitatively and qualitatively altered between cell and tissue types under physiological and pathological states. Changes to EV content are dynamically regulated, and reflect the changes in physiological or pathological environment surrounding the host cell. Hence, dissecting the dynamic and selective packaging of EV-specific miRNAs, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and proteins both qualitatively and quantitatively would greatly improve our understanding of EV biology and therapeutics. To this end, we aim to address the gap in our understanding of the fundamental biology of EVs and how we can leverage our basic understanding to EV-based clinical applications. 

As messengers of the host cell environment, EVs are not only valuable tools for therapeutic modulation and gene delivery, but also for biomarker discovery in many human diseases including cardiovascular disease, fibrosis and cancer. Nevertheless, there are many challenges in studying EVs at both experimental and bioinformatic levels. From the experimental side, it is still a major challenge to purify the EVs released from a specific cell or tissue type from a heterogenous pool of EVs obtained from biofluids. From the bioinformatic perspective, it is still unclear whether consensus-sequence motifs play a role in the selective packaging of miRNAs and lncRNAs for secretion via EVs. In the current Special Issue, the major aim is to revisit and propose improved methods to detect and modulate EVs using EV-specific experimental and bioinformatic approaches. Understanding EV biology, regardless of physiological or pathological relevance, is at the forefront of improving our understanding of human health and disease. 

Given that our interests lie in improving the current understanding of the fundamental biology of EVs and EV-based therapeutics, at both experimental and bioinformatic levels, we invite articles addressing the following topics:

(1) RNAs (e.g., miRNA, lncRNA) secreted via EVs;
(2) Identification of EV-based biomarkers (RNA, protein);
(3) Mapping of novel proteins to EV-mediated secretion;
(4) EV-based gene regulation in recipient cells;
(5) Selective loading of RNA and protein to EVs;
(6) EV-based therapeutics;
(7) Characterization of EV protein and RNA content.

Dr. Prabhu Mathiyalagan
Dr. Malik Bisserier
Guest Editors

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• exosomes
• extracellular vesicles
• EV
• miRNA
• therapeutics
• cardiovascular
• extracellular RNA