title: Cardiac gene therapy: Recent advances and future directions.
abstract: Gene therapy has the potential to serve as an adaptable platform technology for treating various diseases. Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of mortality in the developed world and genetic modification is steadily becoming a more plausible method to repair and regenerate heart tissue. Recently, new gene targets to treat cardiovascular disease have been identified and developed into therapies that have shown promise in animal models. Some of these therapies have advanced to clinical testing. Despite these recent successes, several barriers must be overcome for gene therapy to become a widely used treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In this review, we evaluate specific genetic targets that can be exploited to treat cardiovascular diseases, list the important delivery barriers for the gene carriers, assess the most promising methods of delivering the genetic information, and discuss the current status of clinical trials involving gene therapies targeted to the heart.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mason
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA.
authors.forename: Yu-Zhe
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA.
authors.forename: Harini Venkata
authors.initials: HV
authors.lastname: Krishnan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA; Department of Bioengineering, Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA; McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15219, USA. Electronic address: shs149@pitt.edu.
authors.forename: Shilpa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sant
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000628:therapy; D018014:Gene Transfer Techniques; D015316:Genetic Therapy / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans
keywords: Cardiovascular gene therapy; Non-viral carriers; Viral carriers