Abstract:
Liver transplantation is an effective treatment of end-stage liver diseases. However, liver ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) and rejection significantly cause the decrease of survival rate of liver graft. Therefore, it is urgent to explore a novel method, which can not only alleviate liver IRI, but also promote immune tolerance of allograft, thereby improving the survival rate of liver graft. Extracellular vesicle (EV) is nanoparticle released from cells into the extracellular microenvironment, which may alleviate graft injury by repairing autophagy, immunosuppression and accelerating tissue regeneration. Hence, EV becomes a research hot spot in the field of liver transplantation. Nevertheless, the clinical application of EV encounters multiple challenges, such as separation, purification, identification, storage of EV and how to deliver EV to the target cells. In this article, the mechanism of EV in liver IRI, the challenges in clinical application of EV and the potential application of EV were reviewed, aiming to provide reference for the clinical application of EV in liver transplantation.