# Cell-homing exosomes as a drug delivery carrier to overcome multiple drug resistance

> **NIH NIH R03** · HUSSON UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $64,030

## Abstract

Abstract
Multiple drug resistance (MDR) to chemotherapeutic drugs remains the major obstacle for the effective
treatment of cancers. Efflux transporters, mainly responsible for MDR, pump drugs from the cancer
cells for subsequent elimination and untargeted distribution. As a result, insufficient drug deposition in
the cells leads to the failure of treatment. As functional and extracellular nanovesicles derived
from cells, exosomes play an essential role in the cell-cell communication. Emerging results have
indicated that endogenous exosomes offer significant advantages for the delivery of therapeutic agents
over traditional nanocarriers with cell-homing selectivity and low immunogenicity. Our recent studies
have now defined that exosomes derived from drug-resistant cells significantly increased drug
response to parental cells. The data also demonstrate that the ability of exosomes to increase the
cytotoxicity of delivered anticancer drugs to resistant cells may obtain from not only energy-driven
endocytosis pathways but also specific surface proteins-mediated homing selectivity. In this project,
we plan to (1) characterize exosomes secreted by drug-resistant cancer cells and (2) determine the
mechanism of homing selectivity of the isolated exosomes to drug-resistant cancer cells. With the
completion of above initiative research, we expect that exosomes especially overcome
pharmacoresistance in autologous drug-resistant cancer cells. The study will also improve the
understanding of cancer cell-secreted exosomes in the role of drug resistance. The outcome will
discover bioengineered exosomes as delivery platforms and lead to exosome-based strategies to
overcome drug resistance, the toughest and most challenging hurdle in cancer therapy.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10017969
- **Project number:** 5R03EB028572-02
- **Recipient organization:** HUSSON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Shuhua Bai
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $64,030
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-13 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10017969

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10017969, Cell-homing exosomes as a drug delivery carrier to overcome multiple drug resistance (5R03EB028572-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10017969. Licensed CC0.

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