Exosomes

An Exosome is a term that applies to a tiny extracellular vesicle. They are acellular vesicles that are produced by most cells throughout the body.
They are present in all body fluids such as breast milk, urine, lung fluid, semen, saliva.
Exosomes are produced by cells, but are not cells themselves.

Exosomes are part of the heterogenous Extracellular vesicles which include:

Microvesicles - larger vesicles
Apoptotic Bodies – sometimes the same size as exosomes.

Exosomes are 30-150nm in in size, which is 1000 times smaller than stem cells. They were discovered in 1983 and found to carry proteins, small RNA, cytokines, and growth factors within them.

Exosomes are formed by what is called an endosomal route. Think of a soap bubble, with a lot of "information" contained within it. Exosomes are released from cells by the soap bubble fusing to the cell membrane and then being released into the extracellular space.

The regulation of this process is not well understood. There has been a huge amount of interest in exosomes due to the following:

They are extremely small and acellular. About 1000 times smaller than stem cells. So providers don’t have to worry about damaging a cellular component.
Cost effective – lower cost than most other tissue products.
Less restrictive storage requirements – if lyophilized they can be stored at room temp for months. If not, they can be put into a regular refrigerator temp for 1 month or a freezer for a year.
Great topical results.
The best exosomes are those made from umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells. The MSCs