Review Article

Exosomes as Emerging Regulators of Immune Responses in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Table 1

Current studies of exosomes from immune cells on immune responses in T2DM.

SourceContentsFunctionsExpression in diabetic statusImmune responsesExperimental modelReferences

M1-polarized macrophagesmiR-212-5pTargeting SIRT2 and inhibiting Akt/GSK-3β/β-catenin pathwayUpregulateProinflammatoryHFD miceQian et al. [33]
High glucose-induced macrophage RAW 264.7 cellsmiR-210Impairing glucose uptake and mitochondrial CIV complex activity and suppressed NADH dehydrogenase ubiquinone 1 alpha subcomplex 4 (NDUFA4) expression in 3T3-L1 adipocytesUpregulateProinflammatoryObese diabetic miceTian et al. [34]
Diabetic bone marrow-derived macrophagemiR-144-5pTransferring into bone mesenchymal stem cells to regulate bone regeneration by targeting Smad1UpregulateProinflammatoryT2DM miceZhang et al. [35]
M2 macrophageM2-exosomesPromoting macrophage transformation from M1 to M2 by targeting the PI3K/AKT pathwayUpregulateAnti-inflammatoryT2DM miceWang et al. [64]
M2-polarized macrophagemiR-690Nadk as a target gene of miR-690UpregulateAnti-inflammatoryObese miceYing et al. [36]
Natural killer cellmiR-1249-3pTargeting SKOR1 to regulate the formation of ternary complex SMAD6/MYD88/SMURF1, which mediates glucose homeostasis by suppressing the TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathwayUpregulateAnti-inflammatoryT2DM miceWang et al. [37]

The exosomes miR-212-5p, miR-210, and miR-144-5p are derived from immune cells and have a role in promoting inflammation in T2DM, whereas M2-exosomes, miR-690, and miR-1249-3p show anti-inflammatory effect.