Extracellular Vesicles in the Female Reproductive Tract: Tools for Diagnostics and Drug Delivery

This event is hybrid. In-person attendees are welcome in Mudd 1024. Virtual attendees may join on Zoom. Zoom link available upon registration. 

The composition of the vaginal microenvironment has significant implications for gynecologic and obstetric outcomes. Where a Lactobacillus-dominated microenvironment is typically considered optimal, a polymicrobial environment is associated with increased risk for female reproductive diseases. Recent work has examined bacterial extracellular vesicles (bEVs) as an important mode of microbe-host communication in the female reproductive tract, with bEVs exhibiting unique species- and strain-level functions that may influence women’s health outcomes. We hypothesize that the physical properties of bacterial extracellular vesicles enable their mobility through cervicovaginal mucus and permit interactions with upper female reproductive tract tissues. As the first line of defense against bacteria and pathogens, cervicovaginal mucus protects against infection in the female reproductive tract through steric, hydrophobic, and electrostatic interactions with foreign pathogens. We demonstrate that the barrier properties of mucus prohibit the diffusion of whole bacteria through mucus, but that bEVs from common vaginal microbes diffuse more freely. Leveraging these endogenous barrier-crossing abilities of bEVs, we engineer bEVs as drug delivery carriers to deliver therapeutic proteins to the female reproductive tract. Our work demonstrates the ability of bEVs to mediate female reproductive diseases and highlights their potential as therapeutic modalities for treating dysbiosis and dysbiosis-associated diseases in the female reproductive tract.