Scalable production of siRNA‐encapsulated extracellular vesicles for the inhibition of KRAS‐mutant cancer using acoustic shock waves

Abstract

Abstract Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a potential delivery vehicle for nucleic‐acid‐based therapeutics, but challenges related to their large‐scale production and cargo‐loading efficiency have limited their therapeutic potential. To address these issues, we developed a novel “shock wave extracellular vesicles engineering technology” (SWEET) as a non‐genetic, scalable manufacturing strategy that uses shock waves (SWs) to encapsulate siRNAs in EVs. Here, we describe the use of the SWEET platform to load large quantities of KRASG12C‐targeting siRNA into small bovine‐milk‐derived EVs (sBMEVs), with high efficiency. The siRNA‐loaded sBMEVs effectively silenced oncogenic KRASG12C expression in cancer cells; they inhibited tumour growth when administered intravenously in a non‐small cell lung cancer xenograft mouse model. Our study demonstrates the potential for the SWEET platform to serve as a novel method that allows large‐scale production of cargo‐loaded EVs for use in a wide range of therapeutic applications.

Keywords

• anti‐cancer effects
• bovine‐milk‐derived extracellular vesicles
• gene delivery
• non‐small cell lung cancer
• nucleic‐acid‐based therapeutics
• scalable production