Designing strategies for an efficient Nucleic Acid loading of mammal extracellular vesicles es gene delivery systems

Author

Buchholz de la Ossa, Monika

Abstract

Melanoma is one of the most aggressive forms of skin cancer, with a high incidence and high mortality rate, with limited therapeutic options. For this reason, melanoma is an ideal therapeutic target to introduce new therapeutic approaches based on the design of nanovehicles. In this context, a promising alternative is the use of extracellular vesicles, from 50 to 180 nm, released by mammalian cells, mostly subjected to conditions of cellular stress, such as cancer. Referring to the therapeutic purpose, the intrinsic capacity for intercellular communication of extracellular vesicles, their reduced size, and their natural origin, are promising characteristics that make extracellular vesicles effective advanced gene delivery systems where the encapsulation of nucleic acids encoding for the therapeutic gene is crucial. However, this is also one of the main obstacles to the design of therapies based on the use of extracellular vesicles. This entails the investment of multiple efforts in the development of alternative methods that allow to achieve effective encapsulation. A clear example is exogenous encapsulation methods. The main objective of this final degree project is to carry out the design of encapsulation strategies exogenously, based on the electroporation and permeabilization of extracellular vesicles, in order to optimize the encapsulation efficiency of these vesicles. Consequently, the results obtained have shown that both strategies represent a promising alternative to achieve the efficient encapsulation of nucleic acids in extracellular vesicles from which it will be necessary to continue working to achieve a treatment for patients with melanoma in the future.

 

Director

Fornaguera Puigvert, Cristina 
 

Degree

IQS SE - Undergraduate Program in Pharmacy

Date

2020-07-14