Cell and gene therapy approaches for cardiac vascularization.
Despite encouraging preclinical results for therapeutic angiogenesis in ischemia, a suitable approach providing sustained, safe and efficacious vascular growth in the heart is still lacking. Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) is the master regulator of angiogenesis, but it also can easily induce aberrant and dysfunctional vascular growth if its expression is not tightly controlled. Control of the released level in the microenvironment around each cell in vivo and its distribution in tissue are critical to induce stable and functional vessels for therapeutic angiogenesis. The present review discusses the limitations and perspectives of VEGF gene therapy and of different cell-based approaches for the implementation of therapeutic angiogenesis in the treatment of cardiac ischemia.
Cell and Gene Therapy, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Surgery, Basel University Hospital, Basel 4031, Switzerland. lmelly@uhbs.ch.
Ludovic
L
Melly
Department of Robotics, Brain &amp; Cognitive Sciences, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova 16163, Italy. Stefano.Boccardo@iit.it.
Stefano
S
Boccardo
Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgery, Basel University Hospital, Basel 4031, Switzerland. feckstein@uhbs.ch.
Friedrich
F
Eckstein
Cell and Gene Therapy, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Surgery, Basel University Hospital, Basel 4031, Switzerland. abanfi@uhbs.ch.
Andrea
A
Banfi
Cell and Gene Therapy, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Surgery, Basel University Hospital, Basel 4031, Switzerland. amarsano@uhbs.ch.
Anna
A
Marsano