Adipose-derived stem cell extracellular vesicles: A systematic review

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-secreted packages that deliver cargo to target cells to effect functional and phenotypic changes. They are secreted by many different cell types, including adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs), which are a promising field of study in regenerative medicine. Our aim was to perform a systematic review of the literature to summarize the scientific work that has been conducted on ADSC EVs to date. The Pubmed database was queried with keywords (and variations of) “adipose derived stem cell,” “stromal vascular fraction,” and “extracellular vesicles.” We excluded review papers, then manually screened articles based on title and abstract. Full-text articles were assessed for eligibility to include in final review. While an extensive body of research exists on EVs, a much smaller proportion of that is original research on ADSC EVs. Of 44 manuscripts that met our database search criteria, 21 articles were selected for our systematic review. ADSC EVs were found to exert effects on angiogenesis, cell survival and apoptosis, inflammation, tissue regeneration, and reduction of disease pathology. Further studies examine characteristics of ADSC EVs. Future work should aim to further detail the safety profiles of ADSC EVs given their potential for cell-based therapies. The body of research studies characterizing ADSC EVs continues to expand, and much work remains to be done before human pilot studies can be considered. To our knowledge, we offer the first systematic review summarizing the research on ADSC EVs and their determined roles to date.