title: Hydrogels for therapeutic cardiovascular angiogenesis.
abstract: Acute myocardial infarction (MI) caused by ischemia is the most common cause of cardiac dysfunction. While growth factor or cell therapy is promising, the retention of bioactive agents in the highly vascularized myocardium is limited and prevents sustained activation needed for adequate cellular responses. Various types of biomaterials with different physical and chemical properties have been developed to improve the localized delivery of growth factor and/or cells for therapeutic angiogenesis in ischemic tissues. Hydrogels are particularly advantageous as carrier systems because they are structurally similar to the tissue extracellular matrix (ECM), they can be processed under relatively mild conditions and can be delivered in a minimally invasive manner. Moreover, hydrogels can be designed to degrade in a timely fashion that coincides with the angiogenic process. For these reasons, hydrogels have shown great potential as pro-angiogenic matrices. This paper reviews a few of the hydrogel systems currently being applied together with growth factor delivery and/or cell therapy to promote therapeutic angiogenesis in ischemic tissues, with emphasis on myocardial applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Abdul Jalil
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Rufaihah
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel. Electronic address: dror@bm.technion.ac.il.
authors.forename: Dror
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Seliktar
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000737:chemistry; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems / Q000379:methods*; D006614:Hindlimb / Q000098:blood supply; D006801:Humans; D020100:Hydrogels / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000737:chemistry*; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D007511:Ischemia / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic / Q000187:drug effects*; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D020100:Hydrogels; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins
keywords: Biomaterial; Cell therapy; Growth factor delivery; Ischemia; Minimally invasive; Myocardial infarction