Abstract
Objective With the development of exosomes studies increased around the whole world. Our present study was aimed to investigate the global status and trends in exosomes field. Methods Publications related to exosomes studies from 1994 to 2017 were retrieved from the Web of Science database. The data source was studied and indexed by using bibliometric methodology. For visualized study, VOS viewer software was used to conduct bibliographic coupling analysis, coauthorship analysis, cocitation analysis, and cooccurrence analysis and to analyze the publication trend in exosomes research. Results A total of 4960 publications were included. The relative research interests and number of publications were increasing per year globally. The USA made the highest contributions to the global research with the most citations, the highest H-index, and the most total link strength, while Sweden had the highest average citation per item. The journal PLOS ONE had the highest publication number. The Natl Canc Ctr was the most contributive institutions. Studies could be divided into three clusters: mechanism study, in vivo study, and in vitro study. Conclusions The efforts should be put into mechanism studies, predicted to be the next hot spots in exosomes studies.
Highlights
Extracellular vesicles (EVs), with membranous structures, are called exosomes, microvesicles, microparticles, ectosomes, oncosomes, apoptotic bodies, and many other names [1]
Exosomes are biomembrane-like vesicles containing protein, miRNA, and lipids that can be delivered to the extracellular milieu (ECM) [2], with the size from 30 to 120 nm [3]
Exosomes are naturally produced within the body and could be utilized in cell-to-cell communication, molecular therapy for cancer treatment [4], and diagnosis of several skeletal disorders such as osteoarthritis [5], osteochondral regeneration [6, 7], myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury [8], limb ischemia, and pulmonary hypertension [9, 10]
Summary
With the development of exosomes studies increased around the whole world. Our present study was aimed to investigate the global status and trends in exosomes field. Publications related to exosomes studies from 1994 to 2017 were retrieved from the Web of Science database. VOS viewer software was used to conduct bibliographic coupling analysis, coauthorship analysis, cocitation analysis, and cooccurrence analysis and to analyze the publication trend in exosomes research. The relative research interests and number of publications were increasing per year globally. The USA made the highest contributions to the global research with the most citations, the highest H-index, and the most total link strength, while Sweden had the highest average citation per item. The efforts should be put into mechanism studies, predicted to be the hot spots in exosomes studies
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