Adapted from A. Pinheiro et al, J. Controlled Release 289 (2018) 56-69

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“Extracellular Vesicles are particles naturally released from the cell that are delimited by a lipid bilayer and cannot replicate, i.e. do not contain a functional nucleus.”  C. Théry et al., J Extracell Vesicles. 2018;7(1):1535750.
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EVs are ubiquitous and released by organisms such as prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
EVs are capable of transfering information from donor cells to other cells, thereby influencing the recipient cell function even at sites remote from the vesicular origin.
Therefore, EVs are expected to play major roles in numerous physiological and pathological phenomena, from ageing to cancer, infectious diseases, neurobiology, bioengineering and regenerative medicine.