Enhancement of Extracellular Vesicle Secretion by Temperature-Controlled Microwave Irradiation

A research team at AIST, including Haruki Odaka (Senior Researcher), Hiroki Shimizu (Senior Researcher), and Hiroaki Tateno (Principal Research Manager), in collaboration with Shikoku Instrumentation Co., Ltd., revealed that temperature-controlled microwave irradiation enhances the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from HEK293T cells.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are next-generation biomaterials with broad potential applications in disease biomarker discovery, regenerative medicine, drug delivery, beauty, and healthcare. However, the amount of EVs obtained from cultured cells remains limited, making the development of technologies to improve EV productivity an important challenge for EV analysis, manufacturing, and quality evaluation. Previous studies have reported that microwave irradiation can promote the release of cell-derived particles. However, conventional microwave irradiation is often accompanied by temperature elevation, which can damage cells[1].

In this study, the researchers used a temperature-controlled microwave irradiation system (TEMIS) to examine whether EV secretion could be enhanced while minimizing cellular damage by maintaining the culture medium at 37 °C during microwave irradiation. As a result, in HEK293T cells, which are widely used for EV production, EV secretion increased by approximately 2- to 3-fold without compromising cell viability. In addition, no marked changes were observed in the particle size distribution, protein profile, or miRNA profile of the obtained EVs, indicating that the basic molecular characteristics of the EVs were preserved.

This technology is expected to serve as a new production-support platform for improving the efficiency of EV manufacturing processes. By expanding its application to various cell types and culture scales, it may contribute to accelerating the use of EVs in diagnostics, drug discovery, regenerative medicine, and healthcare.

Effects of temperature-controlled microwave (MW) irradiation on EV secretion

Publication

• Title: TEMIS: A temperature-controlled microwave irradiation system for enhancing extracellular vesicle secretion.
• Authors: Haruki Odaka, Sho Nakazora, Hirofumi Soga, Hiroki Shimizu, Hiroaki Tateno* （* corresponding author）
• Journal:Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports (published online: May 2, 2026)
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bbrep.2026.102608

Related articles

[1] Wu et al. Tumour-derived microparticles obtained through microwave irradiation induce immunogenic cell death in lung adenocarcinoma. Nat. Nanotechnol., 20, 2025. doi:10.1038/s41565-025-01922-3