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

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 KRAS^G12C-targeting siRNA into small bovine-milk-derived EVs (sBMEVs), with high efficiency. The siRNA-loaded sBMEVs effectively silenced oncogenic KRAS^G12C 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.