PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Yongfang Li AU - Yaohui Tang AU - Guo-Yuan Yang TI - Therapeutic application of exosomes in ischaemic stroke AID - 10.1136/svn-2020-000419 DP - 2021 Jan 11 TA - Stroke and Vascular Neurology PG - svn-2020-000419 4099 - http://svn.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/11/svn-2020-000419.short 4100 - http://svn.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/11/svn-2020-000419.full AB - Ischaemic stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability in the world, with limited effective treatments. Increasing evidence demonstrates that exosomes are involved in ischaemic pathology and exhibit restorative therapeutic effects by mediating cell–cell communication. The potential of exosome therapy for ischaemic stroke has been actively investigated in the past decade. In this review, we mainly discuss the current knowledge of therapeutic applications of exosomes from different cell types, different exosomal administration routes, and current advances of exosome tracking and targeting in ischaemic stroke. We also briefly summarised the pathology of ischaemic stroke, exosome biogenesis, exosome profile changes after stroke as well as registered clinical trials of exosome-based therapy.