Round window membrane extracellular vesicles facilitate inner ear drug delivery.

ABSTRACT: Hearing loss affects over 430 million people worldwide, yet effective treatments remain limited, in part due to challenges of inner ear drug delivery, a process that is risky, unreliable, and inefficient. Addressing this challenge calls for delivery approaches that ensure therapies reach the inner ear safely and effectively. Intratympanic (IT) injection, which delivers drugs directly into the middle ear, is currently the safest method for preserving cochlear integrity. However, its efficiency is limited by the round window membrane (RWM), a barrier with tight junctions that restricts therapy-related substance passage into the inner ear. We propose that extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by RWM cells could serve as a novel vehicle for drug delivery, as their membrane features and intrave

SUBMITTER: Holdsclaw S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12836284 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature