Received March 3, 2005
Revised March 7, 2005
Accepted after revision March 9, 2005
Does Gene Therapy become Pharmacotherapy ?
Ryuichi Morishita 1*,
Motokuni Aoki 1,
Toshio Ogihara 1
1 Osaka University
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: morishit{at}cgt.med.osaka-u.ac.jp.
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Abstract |
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Recent progress in molecular and cellular biology has developed numerous effective cardiovascular drugs. However, there are still number of diseases for which no known effective therapy exists, such as peripheral arterial disease, ischemic heart disease, restenosis after angioplasty, and vascular bypass graft occlusion. Currently, gene therapy is emerging as a potential strategy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease despite of its limitation. The first human trial in cardiovascular disease was started at 1994 to treat peripheral vascular disease using vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Then, many different potent angiogenic growth factors were tested in clinical to treat peripheral arterial disease and ischemic heart disease. Improvement of clinical symptoms in peripheral arterial disease and ischemic heart disease has been reported. This review focuses on the future potential of gene therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. In future, gene therapy might become a real pharmacotherapy to treat cardiovascular disease.
Key Words:
Angiogenesis, Endothelial cell, Gene expression
