Figure 1.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) can be released by hepatocytes upon lipotoxic or alcohol-induced injury. EV cargoes include a multitude of molecules that can act on target cells, evoking inflammatory and fibrogenic events and promoting neoplastic transformation, thus contributing to the progression of both alcoholic liver disease (ALD) and nonalcoholic liver disease (NAFLD) to their inflammatory and more aggressive forms alcoholic steatohepatitis (ASH) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), respectively as well as to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC development. EVs hold promise for both diagnosis (i.e., as biomarkers of disease severity or for diagnosis of HCC) and therapeutic purposes (i.e., therapeutic use of mesenchymal stem cell [MSC]-derived EVs, drug o miRNAs liver targeted therapies and anti-tumor vaccines).