Extracellular Vesicles in Osteosarcoma: Antagonists or Therapeutic Agents?

Viviana De Martino, Michela Rossi, Giulia Battafarano, Jessica Pepe, Salvatore Minisola, Andrea Del Fattore

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

Osteosarcoma (OS) is a skeletal tumor affecting mainly children and adolescents. The presence of distance metastasis is frequent and it is localized preferentially to the lung, representing the main reason for death among patients. The therapeutic approaches are based on surgery and chemotherapeutics. However, the drug resistance and the side effects associated with the chemotherapy require the identification of new therapeutic approaches. The understanding of the complex biological scenario of the osteosarcoma will open the way for the identification of new targets for its treatment. Recently, a great interest of scientific community is for extracellular vesicles (EVs), that are released in the tumor microenvironment and are important regulators of tumor proliferation and the metastatic process. At the same time, circulating extracellular vesicles can be exploited as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, and they can be loaded with drugs as a new therapeutic approach for osteosarcoma patients. Thus, the characterization of OS-related EVs could represent a way to convert these vesicles from antagonists for human health into therapeutic and/or diagnostic agents.

Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational journal of molecular sciences
Volume22
Issue number22
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 22 2021

Keywords

  • Antineoplastic Agents/adverse effects
  • Cell Movement/drug effects
  • Cell Proliferation/drug effects
  • Drug Resistance/genetics
  • Extracellular Vesicles/chemistry
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic/drug effects
  • Humans
  • Neoplasm Metastasis
  • Osteosarcoma/drug therapy
  • Tumor Microenvironment/drug effects

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