[Gene therapy for anti-aging medicine].
Better understanding of the mechanism of aging, particularly in vivo mice or C. elegans, will have an important impact on drug discovery for several kinds of human diseases. In the history of gene therapy, the initial target diseases were cancer or congenital diseases. However, since the concept of therapeutic angiogenesis had been proposed, the cardiovascular diseases were currently new targets of gene therapy. We used the naked plasmid of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) as an angiogenic factor for peripheral arterial diseases, and showed the efficacy and safety in clinical trial. Recent reports suggest that HGF has an anti-inflammatory action and attenuated cellular senescence. Thus, HGF gene therapy might be an anti-aging therapy in cardiovascular diseases.
Nakagami
Hironori
H
Division of Gene Therapy Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University.
Morishita
Ryuichi
R
D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D015316:Genetic Therapy; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice