Abstract
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid-bound vesicles released from cells under physiological and pathological conditions. Basing on biogenesis, dimension, content and route of secretion, they can be classified into exosomes, microvesicles (MVs) and apoptotic bodies. EVs have a key role as bioactive mediators in intercellular communication, but they are also involved in other physiological processes like immune response, blood coagulation, and tissue repair. The interest in studying EVs has increased over the years due to their involvement in several diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), and their potential role as biomarkers in diagnosis, therapy, and in drug delivery system development. Nowadays, the improvement of mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques allows the characterization of the EV protein composition to deeply understand their role in several diseases. In this review, a critical overview is provided on the EV’s origin and physical properties, as well as their emerging functional role in both physiological and disease conditions, focusing attention on the role of exosomes in CVDs. The most important cardiac exosome proteomic studies will be discussed giving a qualitative and quantitative characterization of the exosomal proteins that could be used in future as new potential diagnostic markers or targets for specific therapies.
Highlights
Endogenous or internalized molecules involved in different and specific cellular mechanisms are compartmentalized into distinctly structured organelles; some of them can be released from the cell and play a role in physiopathological processes, embryofetal development, or metabolic regulation [1].With the term extracellular vesicles (EVs) are defined lipid-bound vesicles secreted by cells in the extracellular space [2] both in physiologic conditions and under several stimuli such as hypoxia, stress, senescence, cell death, and inflammation [3]
Using 2-DE and MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry (MS) they compared the proteomes of exosomes from samples collected from healthy children and children with coronary artery aneurysms (CAA) caused by Kawasaki disease (KD). Even if it was a preliminary study on a small casistic, they demonstrated that levels of 32 exosomal proteins were significantly changed (18 upregulated and 14 downregulated) in patients with CAA compared to healthy controls, and these proteins were mainly involved in metabolic and immune system processes with several molecular functions among which the dominant were catalytic activity, enzyme regulator activity, and binding
EVs are abundant in bodily fluids, they can potentially be used in minimally invasive liquid biopsies that are able to provide information on patient diagnosis, improve prognosis, and define the follow-up protocol
Summary
Endogenous or internalized molecules involved in different and specific cellular mechanisms are compartmentalized into distinctly structured organelles; some of them can be released from the cell and play a role in physiopathological processes, embryofetal development, or metabolic regulation [1]. A wide terminology has been used to identify EVs, but based on their biogenesis, cargo, biochemical composition, and release pathway, they can be classified into three main categories: exosomes, microvesicles (MVs), and apoptotic bodies [7] (Figure 1 and Table 1). ESCRT complex, tetraspanins (CD63, CD9, CD81, and CD82), flotillins, TSG101, ALIX, heat shock proteins (HSC70, HSP60, HSP70, HSPA5, CCT2, and HSP90) This table meets the minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles (MISEV) 2018 guidelines for the description of the protein markers that can be applied to all EVs [10]. 10; ALIX, programmed cell death 6-interacting protein; APP, amyloid precursor protein; CCT2, chaperonin containing TCP1 subunit 2; EMMPRIN, extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer; ESCRT, endosomal sorting complex required for transport; GAPDH, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase; HSC70, heat shock cognate.
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