Figure 4:

Exosome drug loading techniques, (A) Exosome-secreting cells or exosomes incubated with desired cargos. Cargos diffuse across the cell and exosomal membrane and are subsequently packaged within the exosomes. (B) Desired nucleic acids can be loaded into exosomes via a transfection-based strategy. Transfected with vectors, the donor cell generates RNAs/proteins and packages these products into exosomes using endogenous expression and sorting machinery of donor cell, respectively. Exosomes can be directly transfected with small RNAs for cargo loading purposes. (C) Cargos can be loaded into exosomes directly through physical treatments. Electroporation, sonication, and surfactant treatment generate pores on the exosomal membranes that facilitate cargo loading. Freeze-thaw treatment, extrusion, and dialysis enhance cargo loading into exosomes during membrane recombination processes. Adapted from Shengyang Fu et al.(2020)¹⁴⁶, Copyright @ ELSEVIER.