MESENCHYMAL STEM CELL-DERIVED EXOSOMES AND TREATMENT IN ATHEROSCLEROSIS: A SCOPING REVIEW

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease that involves the formation of plaque in large arteries. It is a leading cause of vascular death worldwide and current therapy does not effective to all patients. Recently, mesenchymal cell (MSC) derived exosome particles shown potential as treatment for this disease. Therefore, this scoping review aims to give an overview and find out the extend of research on its medicinal potential in atherosclerosis. A total of five online databases were used in the article searching namely Scopus, Science Direct, Cambridge Journal, PubMed, and Cochrane Library. Keywords (atherosclerosis OR atherogenesis) AND (‘mesenchymal cell’ OR ‘stem cell’) AND (exosome OR exosomes) were used. 10 relevant papers were chosen to be used in this review after being filtered out using PRISMA 2020 method and the relevant information was extracted. The summary of the core concepts that were used in all relevant papers showed that inflammation is the most targeted process in this disease development followed by inhibition of apoptosis, and facilitation of movement of cells that contributes to the atherogenesis. In most papers, MSC exosome was used as vehicles to transport biological components to the targeted site. In conclusion, there are a lot of research gaps that should be addressed in order to use MSC-derived exosomes in atherosclerosis treatment.