Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play a crucial role in transporting functional RNAs to target recipient cells in various physiological processes, holding great potential for applications in therapy and diagnostics. The highly diverse EVs have different RNA profiles from their originating cells, indicating a selective and active loading process for specific RNAs. However, the precise molecular mechanisms governing the selective loading of mRNA into EVs remain undiscovered.
In our research, we focused on small EVs (sEVs) obtained through sucrose density gradient ultracentrifugation and found regarding RNA loading into sEVs. We identified RAB13 as one of the enriched RNAs in sEVs, and we revealed that a specific segment of the 3' untranslated region of the RAB13 gene plays a crucial role in concentrating RNA content within sEVs. This finding has the potential to enable technology for loading targeted RNAs into sEVs, which could lead to more efficient and novel targeted therapies and diagnostics.