Extracellular Vesicles Biology and its Emerging Role in Osteoarthritis and Related Arthritides Attur M, Mignatti P, Han T, Attur MG * Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY 10003, USA ABSTRACT Extracellular vesicles (EV) are a heterogeneous group of membrane-enclosed structures that are shed from multiple cell types and can contain a variety of bioactive molecules including, nucleic acids, lipids, and proteins. They range in size from 50 nm to 5,000 nm and, based on their size, are sub-classified into exosomes, microvesicles and apoptotic bodies. While the content and formation of EV are diverse, research has yet to pinpoint their physiological and pathological roles. This review presents an overview of EV and a focus on exosomes, the most studied EV, and on the cellular processes that mediate their biogenesis. Understanding these mechanisms can shed light on their roles in physiology and disease, and indicate their potential therapeutic efficacy in clinical settings, especially in musculoskeletal diseases. Keywords: Osteoarthritis related arthritides; Vesicles; Exosomes INTRODUCTION Multicellular organisms depend on intercellular communication to control a variety of cell functions and maintain homeostasis. While the mechanisms behind cell-cell contact and molecular signaling has been extensively studied, the importance of extracellular vesicles (EV) in intercellular communication has only recently been appreciated [1-3]. The first observation of EV is believed to have been made in 1946 by Chargaff and West, who wrote of procoagulant platelet-derived particles found in normal plasma [4]. In the 1970s there followed an increasing number of independent EV observations, from the detection of vesicles in seminal plasma [5] to observations of tumor- originating membrane fragments [6]. The next large steps in EV research occurred in the 1980s, when studies of reticulocytes found that vesicles, in addition to being released from the cell surface, could also be released via fusion of multi-vesicular bodies (MVB) to the plasma membrane [7,8]. Figure 1: Number of publications containing the word “microvesicles” or “exosomes” in the title or abstract. REVIEW OF THE HISTORY In the 1990s, studies began showing an increasingly clear connection between the release of EV and the immune response, such as the capacity of EV derived from Epstein-Barr R h e u m a t o l o g y : C u rr e n t R e s e a r c h ISSN: 2161-1149 Rheumatology: Current Research Review Article Correspondence to: Mukundan G Attur, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY 10003, USA, Tel: +212-598-6578; E-mail: Mukundan.attur@nyulangone.org Received: October 08, 2019; Accepted: October 18, 2019; Published: October 23, 2019 Citation: Attur M, Mignatti P, Han T, Attur MG (2019) Extracellular Vesicles Biology and its Emerging Role in Osteoarthritis and Related Arthritides. Rheumatology (Sunnyvale). 9:254. DOI: 10.35248/2161-1149.19.9.254 Copyright: © 2019 Attur M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Rheumatology (Sunnyvale), Vol.9 Iss.2 No:1000254 1