PlexinA1 (PLXNA1) as a novel scaffold protein for the engineering of extracellular vesicles

Hang Zhao ¹, Zhi Li ^1 2, Da Liu ¹, Jiaxun Zhang ¹, Zhicheng You ¹, Yuzhang Shao ³, Hongyan Li ¹, Jun Yang ¹, Xiang Liu ¹, Miaozhu Wang ¹, Chengen Wu ¹, Jing Chen ¹, Jianwu Wang ¹, Guanyi Kong ¹, Libo Zhao ¹

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) had been described as a next-generation drug delivery system, due to the compelling evidence that they can facilitate the transfer of a variety of biomolecules between cells. The most frequently used strategy for loading protein cargoes is the endogenous engineering of EVs through genetic fusion of the protein of interest (POI) and scaffold proteins with high EV-sorting ability. However, the lack of scaffold proteins had become a major issue hindering the promotion of this technology. Herein, we proposed novel screening criteria that relax the inclusion requirement of candidate scaffold proteins and eventually identified a new scaffold protein, PLXNA1. The truncated PLXNA1 not only inherits the high EV-sorting ability of its full-length counterpart but also allows the fusion expression of POI in both outer surface and luminal areas, individually or simultaneously. In conclusion, our screening criteria expanded the range of potential scaffold proteins. The identified scaffold protein PLXNA1 showed great potential in developing therapeutic EVs.