Exosomes in diagnostic and therapeutic applications of ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer accounts for more deaths than any other female reproductive tract cancer.

The major reasons for the high mortality rates include delayed diagnoses and drug resistance.

Hence, improved diagnostic and therapeutic options for ovarian cancer are a pressing need.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), that include exosomes provide hope in both diagnostic and therapeutic aspects.

They are natural lipid nanovesicles secreted by all cell types and carry molecules that reflect the status of the parent cell.

This facilitates their potential use as biomarkers for an early diagnosis.

Additionally, EVs can be loaded with exogenous cargo, and have features such as high stability and favorable pharmacokinetic properties.

This makes them ideal for tumor-targeted delivery of biological moieties.

The International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) based on the Minimal Information for Studies on Extracellular Vesicles (MISEV) recommends the usage of the term “small extracellular vesicles (sEVs)” that includes exosomes for particles that are 30–200 nm in size.

However, majority of the studies reported in the literature and relevant to this review have used the term “exosomes”.

Therefore, this review will use the term “exosomes” interchangeably with sEVs for consistency with the literature and avoid confusion to the readers.

This review, initially summarizes the different isolation and detection techniques developed to study ovarian cancer-derived exosomes and the potential use of these exosomes as biomarkers for the early diagnosis of this devastating disease.

It addresses the role of exosome contents in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer, discusses strategies to limit exosome-mediated ovarian cancer progression, and provides options to use exosomes for tumor-targeted therapy in ovarian cancer.

Finally, it states future research directions and recommends essential research needed to successfully transition exosomes from the laboratory to the gynecologic-oncology clinic.