Fig. 2.

The process of miRNA-mediated treatment envisioned for future application in HCC patients. Based on experimental data generated using cell lines, a comparable approach for engineering exosomes containing miRNA cocktails can be tailored to the patient-specific needs. This approach has many technical hurdles to overcome but has great promise as future therapy for HCC with fewer side effects. Selecting and culturing appropriate cells to produce enough exosomes is a first priority. Second, endogenous and exogenous packaging of desired miRNAs into exosomes is important. The former would need to be done by transfecting miRNA over-expressing vectors into donor cells, while the latter would require transferring miRNA mimics into isolated exosomes or via electroporation. Transporting exosomes to the liver by intra-venous delivery or direct intra-tumoral injection is also a major objective