Exosomes: Extracellular vesicles transporting macromolecules

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), firstly identified in 1983 in the conditioned culture medium collected during the maturation of reticulocytes into erythrocytes, are released by the cells into the extracellular milieu. EVs are present in all human body fluids; their number and content are often modulated in pathological samples, thus making interesting their evaluation as possible disease biomarkers.