Extracellular vesicle-mediated immune-metabolic crosstalk: research advances in inflammatory regulation and the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Extracellular vesicles (EVs)-lipid bilayer-enclosed nanoparticles secreted by virtually all cell types-have shifted from being viewed as passive cellular byproducts to active signaling nodes orchestrating inter-cellular and inter-organ communication. Yet the field has accumulated faster than it has integrated: hundreds of EV-cargo-phenotype associations exist as isolated edges of a network whose system-level architecture remains poorly defined. Here we propose the vesiculome as an operational framework for that network, resting on three falsifiable axioms: (i) the EV complement of an organism constitutes a network addressable by donor cell × target tissue × cargo class; (ii) cargo composition tracks donor-cell metabolic state in a quantitatively predictable way; and (iii) the integrated balance between pro-inflammatory and pro-resolving vesicle outputs - rather than any single edge - determines the organismal metabolic phenotype. Organized along the chain of EV generation, immune-metabolic interaction, disease mechanism, and translational application, the review synthesizes how this network sustains metabolic homeostasis and how its dysregulation drives metaflammation, the chronic low-grade inflammation underlying obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, and atherosclerosis. We dissect two reciprocal arcs of this vesiculome. P

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.