Recipient Cell Type-Dependent Association of Extracellular Vesicles from Different Cellular Origins

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are promising nanocarriers for therapeutic delivery; however, the factors governing EV uptake by recipient cells remain incompletely understood. In this study, we investigated whether EV internalization is primarily influenced by donor-cell origin or recipient-cell phenotype. Fluorescently labeled EVs derived from HEK293T, or SKBR-3 cells were incubated with a range of human epithelial, immune, and murine cancer cell lines at different doses and time points. HEK293T-derived EVs showed highly variable uptake across recipient cells, with hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines Huh7 and HepG2 exhibiting the highest internalization, while parental HEK293T cells showed the lowest. THP-1 immune cells also demonstrated strong uptake, whereas Jurkat cells showed moderate uptake. In murine melanoma models, Yummer cells internalized more EVs than B16F10 cells. Importantly, similar uptake trends were observed using SKBR-3-derived EVs, where Huh7 and HepG2 again displayed the highest uptake despite originating from a different donor cell source. EV internalization increased with dose and incubation time until saturation at higher concentrations. Together, these results demonstrate that EV uptake is predominantly determined by recipient-cell characteristics rather than EV source. These findings provide important mechanistic insight for the development of EV-based therapeutics and suggest that optimizing recipient-cell targeting is essential for efficient vesicle-mediated delivery. Graphical abstract EV uptake is determined by cell membrane properties rather than by the source of the EVs. The image was created by Biorender.