Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrigenomics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1486572
This article is part of the Research Topic Extracellular Vesicles and miRNAs: Pioneers in Nutritional Science and Functional Food Development View all 3 articles

Exosome-like nanovesicles derived from kale juice enhance collagen production by downregulating Smad7 in human skin fibroblasts

Provisionally accepted
Peihan Hsu Peihan Hsu 1Yuriko Kamijyo Yuriko Kamijyo 1Emiri Koike Emiri Koike 2Saki Ichikawa Saki Ichikawa 2Yifeng Zheng Yifeng Zheng 2Tomohiro Ohno Tomohiro Ohno 3Shigeru Katayama Shigeru Katayama 2*
  • 1 Graduate School of Science and Technology, Shinshu University, Nagano, Nagano, Japan
  • 2 Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan
  • 3 Yakult Health Foods Co., Ltd., Oita, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Plant-derived exosome-like nanovesicles (ELNs) are critical mediators of cross-kingdom communication, modulating gene expression in animal cells despite their plant origin. In this study, we investigated the effects of glucoraphanin-enriched kale (GEK)-derived ELNs (GELNs) on collagen production in normal human dermal fibroblasts NB1RGB. The ELNs isolated from GEK juice powder had particle sizes similar to those of typical exosomes. GELNs increased type I collagen expression in NB1RGB cells significantly. Microarray analysis demonstrated that GELNderived total RNA upregulated the expression of genes related to extracellular matrix formation, including those involved in collagen synthesis. Further investigation revealed that microRNAenriched fraction of GELNs promoted collagen production by inhibiting the expression of Smad7. These findings suggest that GELNs and their microRNA content enhance collagen production through the downregulation of Smad7.

    Keywords: Collagen, Exosomes, exosome-like nanovesicles, Fibroblasts, miRNA

    Received: 26 Aug 2024; Accepted: 21 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Hsu, Kamijyo, Koike, Ichikawa, Zheng, Ohno and Katayama. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shigeru Katayama, Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.