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Review
. 2020 Jan 6;9(1):130.
doi: 10.3390/cells9010130.

Monitoring Therapy Efficiency in Cancer through Extracellular Vesicles

Ines Stevic  1 , Gustav Buescher  2 , Franz Lennard Ricklefs  1
Affiliations
Review

Monitoring Therapy Efficiency in Cancer through Extracellular Vesicles

Ines Stevic et al. Cells. .

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a heterogeneous group of membrane-enclosed vesicles made of a phospholipid bilayer and are secreted by all cell types. EVs are present in a variety of body fluids containing proteins, DNA, RNA species, and lipids, and play an important role in cell- to-cell communication and are worth being considered as biomarkers for both early diagnosis of cancer patients and real-time monitoring of treatment response. Recently, emerging evidence verified EVs to have crucial roles in cancer progression and metastasis and a great potential in therapeutic applications. In this review, we discuss the potential of EVs in monitoring the efficacy of cancer therapies.

Keywords: chemoresistance; extracellular vesicles (EVs), cancer; therapy monitoring.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Approaches to monitor therapies by EVs and their cargo. Shown changes were associated with therapy resistance or failure (A) in contrast to changes seen if the cancer is responding to therapy (B) ↑: increase, upregulation; ↓: decrease, downregulation; EV level↑: Increase in EV concentration; miR: microRNA; CTC: circulation tumor cells; CSC: cancer stem-like cells; MP: microparticles.
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