Figure 1.

A summary of (A) EV cargo sorting and (B) methods for engineering exosome-based therapeutics to treat cardiovascular disease. EV cargo sorting is dependent on recognition signal or motif, post-translational modifications, and signaling molecules via ESCRT-dependent or -independent mechanism. Current methods in engineering EVs to incorporate therapeutic molecules include viral (e.g., overexpression of a gene using a viral vector, and delivery of a gene using a recombinant virus) or non-viral (e.g., incorporation of drugs or bioactive compounds by incubation or mechanical means, and alteration of targeting peptides) approaches. Abbreviations: Extracellular Vesicle (EV), Endosomal Sorting Complex (ESCRT), Early Endosome (EE), Multivesicle (MV), Multivesicular body (MVB).