Abstract
We have known for just over a decade that functional RNA is shuttled between cells (Nat. Cell Biol. (2007) 9, 654-659). In that short time, there have been countless reports of extracellular RNA (exRNA) and extracellular vesicles (EVs) participating in diverse biological processes in development (Dev. Cell (2017) 40, 95-103), homoeostasis (Nature (2017) 542, 450-455) and disease (Nature (2017) 546, 498-503). Unsurprisingly - as these disciplines are still in their infancies - most of this work is still in the 'discovery biology' phase. However, exRNA and EVs show promise as disease biomarkers and could be harnessed in novel therapies.