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Ischemic stroke is one of the major contributors to death and disability worldwide. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop early brain tissue perfusion therapies following acute stroke and to enhance functional recovery in stroke survivors. The morbidity, therapy, and recovery processes are highly orchestrated interactions involving the brain with other tissues. Exosomes are natural and ideal mediators of intercellular information transfer and recognized as biomarkers for disease diagnosis and prognosis. Changes in exosome contents express throughout the physiological process. Accumulating evidence demonstrates the use of exosomes in exploring unknown cellular and molecular mechanisms of intercellular communication and organ homeostasis and indicates their potential role in ischemic stroke. Inspired by the unique properties of exosomes, this review focuses on the communication, diagnosis, and therapeutic role of various derived exosomes, and their development and challenges for the treatment of cerebral ischemic stroke.

Atherosclerosis is the pathological basis of various vascular diseases, including those with high mortality, such as myocardial infarction and stroke. However, its pathogenesis is complex and has not been fully elucidated yet. Over the past few years, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has been developed and widely used in many biological fields to reveal biological mechanisms at the cellular level and solve the problems of cellular heterogeneity that cannot be solved using bulk RNA sequencing. In this review, we briefly summarize the existing scRNA-seq technologies and focus on their application in atherosclerosis research to provide insights into the occurrence, development and treatment of atherosclerosis.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR), a leading cause of vision loss and blindness worldwide, is caused by retinal neurovascular unit dysfunction, and its cellular pathology involves at least nine kinds of retinal cells, including photoreceptors, horizontal and bipolar cells, amacrine cells, retinal ganglion cells, glial cells (Müller cells, astrocytes, and microglia), endothelial cells, pericytes, and retinal pigment epithelial cells. Its mechanism is complicated and involves loss of cells, inflammatory factor production, neovascularization, and BRB impairment. However, the mechanism has not been completely elucidated. Drug treatment for DR has been gradually advancing recently. Research on potential drug targets relies upon clear information on pathogenesis and effective biomarkers. Therefore, we reviewed the recent literature on the cellular pathology and the diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of DR in terms of blood, protein, and clinical and preclinical drug therapy (including synthesized molecules and natural molecules). This review may provide a theoretical basis for further DR research.

Gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) hydrogels have aroused considerable interests in the field of tissue engineering due to tunable physical properties and cell response parameters. A number of works have studied the impact of GelMA concentration, photo-initiator concentration, methacrylic anhydride (MA) concentration, cooling rate and temperature gradient on GelMA hydrogel generation, but little attention has been paid to the effect of the freezing temperatures and freezing time of GelMA prepolymer solution during preparation. In this study, GelMA hydrogels were synthesized with different freezing temperatures and time. It was found that the lower freezing temperatures and longer freezing time caused smaller pore sizes that realized higher cell viability and proliferation of MC3T3-E1 cells. The results showed that tunable microstructure of GelMA could be achieved by regulating the freezing conditions of GelMA, which provided a broad prospect for the applications of GelMA hydrogels in tissue engineering.