Diagnostic and therapeutic applications of melanoma-derived exosomes in nanomedicine

Abstract

Melanoma remains challenging due to pronounced heterogeneity, early metastasis, and dynamic treatment resistance. Conventional tissue biopsy and imaging provide essential information but are limited by invasiveness, sampling bias, and an inability to capture longitudinal tumor-immune evolution. As endogenous bio-nanomaterials, small extracellular vesicles/exosomes circulate stably in body fluids and carry multi-omic cargo (DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids), enabling minimally invasive liquid biopsy and real-time disease monitoring. Beyond diagnostics, engineered exosomal nanomaterials can be functionalized and loaded with therapeutic payloads to improve targeted delivery and support combination regimens, including immunotherapy. This review highlights mechanistic roles of exosomes in melanoma progression, summarizes key liquid-biopsy biomarkers (e.g., exosomal PD-L1 and EV-miRNA/protein signatures), and discusses translational barriers such as standardization, scalable manufacturing, safety, and clinical validation.

Keywords

Melanoma / exosomal nanomaterials / small extracellular vesicles / liquid biopsy / immunotherapy monitoring / exosomal PD-L1 / engineered exosomes / targeted delivery / theranostics

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