Abstract
With their nano-sized structure, exosomes are involved
in a wide variety of cellular processes such as genetic information flow,
immune system modulations, intercellular communication, and pathophysiological
changes. The use of exosomes are exponentially growing particularly in the
areas of identification of biomarkers, development of nanocarriers for
effective drug delivery, and vaccine production. In recent years, edible plant
derived exosomes gained much interest with their strong antimicrobial
activities, modulatory activities on the intestinal stem cells, and the
anticancer activities. In this study, the cytotoxic effects of fig, lemon, olive and turnip derived
exosomes were investigated through the neutral red uptake assay. It was
observed that 100 µg/mL protein containing lemon and turnip derived exosomes
inhibited the cell proliferation significantly, on the other hand, fig and
olive derived exosomes did not alter the proliferation of MCF-7 cells. Since
the results for the cytotoxic activity of turnip exosomes are original in this
research, it was found worthy to emphasis the utility of turnip exosomes for
the development of new anticancer agents or new drug delivery nanocarriers.