(168x) Chirality-Assisted Drug Delivery in Exosomes for Gene Therapy

As naturally formed extracellular vesicles, Exosomes have enormous potential as a safe and effective delivery vehicle of drugs into lesion location. They have demonstrated multiple advantages over existing delivery vehicles such as liposomes and viral vectors, which is, low immunogenicity, long circulation time, optimal biocompatibility, strong tissue penetration, enhanced targeting effect, and strong ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. Efficient loading of various exogenous cargos into Exosomes gaining increasing recognition for drug delivery. It is possible to take advantage of chiral interactions with biological lipid membranes to improve the performance of drug-loading into the Exosomes. Herein, we reported that chiral graphene quantum dots (GQDs) were designed as the efficient carrier to enhance penetration of therapeutic signals such as small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) into the Exosomes. The planar structure of graphene offers an excellent capability to immobilize a large number of substance drugs. The synergistic effect of chiral GQDs and pi-pi stacking achieved significant penetration and quantified loading of therapeutic genes. Our developed chirality-assisted drug loading system creates new possibilities of Exosome therapies and is promising for clinical uses.