Hepatocyte growth factor gene therapy reduces ventricular arrhythmia in animal models of myocardial ischemia.
It was recently reported that gene therapy using hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) has the potential to preserve cardiac function after myocardial ischemia. We speculated that this HGF gene therapy could also prevent ventricular arrhythmia. To investigate this possibility, we examined the antiarrhythmic effect of HGF gene therapy in rat acute and old myocardial infarction models. Myocardial ischemia was induced by ligation of the left descending coronary artery. Hemagglutinating virus of Japan (HVJ)-coated liposome containing HGF genes were injected directly into the myocardium fourteen days before programmed pacing. Ventricular fibrillation (VF)was induced by programmed pacing. The VF duration was reduced and the VF threshold increased after HGF gene therapy ( p< 0.01). Histological analyses revealed that the number of vessels in the ischemic border zone was greatly increased after HGF gene injection. These findings revealed that HGF gene therapy has an anti-arrhythmic effect after myocardial ischemia.
Yumoto
Akihisa
A
Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine and Dentistry, Okayama 700-8558, Japan. ayumoto-circ@umin.ac.jp
Fukushima Kusano
Kengo
K
Nakamura
Kazufumi
K
Hashimoto
Katsushi
K
Aoki
Motokuni
M
Morishita
Ryuichi
R
Kaneda
Yasufumi
Y
Ohe
Tohru
T
D000208:Acute Disease; D000818:Animals; D002908:Chronic Disease; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D015316:Genetic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D017228:Hepatocyte Growth Factor / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D029082:Sendai virus / Q000235:genetics*; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy
D017228:Hepatocyte Growth Factor