Therapeutic Angiogenesis (therapeutic + angiogenesi)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Peripheral arterial disease in diabetes,a review

DIABETIC MEDICINE, Issue 1 2010
E. B. Jude
Diabet. Med. 27, 4,14 (2010) Abstract Diabetic patients are at high risk for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) characterized by symptoms of intermittent claudication or critical limb ischaemia. Given the inconsistencies of clinical findings in the diagnosis of PAD in the diabetic patient, measurement of ankle-brachial pressure index (ABI) has emerged as the relatively simple, non-invasive and inexpensive diagnostic tool of choice. An ABI < 0.9 is not only diagnostic of PAD even in the asymptomatic patient, but is also an independent marker of increased morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular diseases. With better understanding of the process of atherosclerosis, avenues for treatment have increased. Modification of lifestyle and effective management of the established risk factors such as smoking, dyslipidaemia, hyperglycaemia and hypertension retard the progression of the disease and reduce cardiovascular events in these patients. Newer risk factors such as insulin resistance, hyperfibrinogenaemia, hyperhomocysteinaemia and low-grade inflammation have been identified, but the advantages of modifying them in patients with PAD are yet to be proven. Therapeutic angiogenesis, on the other hand, represents a promising therapeutic adjunct in the management of PAD in these patients. Outcomes after revascularization procedures, such as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and surgical bypasses in diabetic patients, are poorer, with increased perioperative morbidity and mortality compared with that in non-diabetic patients. Amputation rates are higher due to the distal nature of the disease. Efforts towards increasing awareness and intensive treatment of the risk factors will help to reduce morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients with PAD. [source]


Therapeutic angiogenesis and vasculogenesis for tissue regeneration

EXPERIMENTAL PHYSIOLOGY, Issue 3 2005
Paolo Madeddu
Therapeutic angiogenesis/vasculogenesis holds promise for the cure of ischaemic disease. The approach postulates the manipulation of spontaneous healing response by supplementation of growth factors or transplantation of vascular progenitor cells. These supplements are intended to foster the formation of arterial collaterals and promote the regeneration of damaged tissues. Angiogenic factors are generally delivered in the form of recombinant proteins or by gene transfer using viral vectors. In addition, new non-viral methods are gaining importance for their safer profile. The association of growth factors with different biological activity might offer distinct advantages in terms of efficacy, yet combined approaches require further optimization. Alternatively, substances with pleiotropic activity might be considered, by virtue of their ability to target multiple mechanisms. For instance, some angiogenic factors not only stimulate the growth of arterioles and capillaries, but also inhibit vascular destabilization triggered by metabolic and oxidative stress. Transplantation of endothelial progenitor cells was recently proposed for the treatment of peripheral and myocardial ischaemia. Progenitor cells can be transplanted either without any preliminary conditioning or after ex vivo genetic manipulation. Delivery of genetically modified progenitor cells eliminates the drawback of immune response against viral vectors and makes feasible repeating the therapeutic procedure in case of injury recurrence. It is envisioned that these new approaches of regenerative medicine will open unprecedented opportunities for the care of life-threatening diseases. [source]


Spatiotemporal control of vascular endothelial growth factor delivery from injectable hydrogels enhances angiogenesis

JOURNAL OF THROMBOSIS AND HAEMOSTASIS, Issue 3 2007
E. A. SILVA
Summary. Therapeutic angiogenesis with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) delivery may provide a new approach for the treatment of ischemic diseases, but current strategies to deliver VEGF rely on either bolus delivery or systemic administration, resulting in limited clinical utility, because of the short half-life of VEGF in vivo and its resultant low and transient levels at sites of ischemia. We hypothesize that an injectable hydrogel system can be utilized to provide temporal control and appropriate spatial biodistribution of VEGF in ischemic hindlimbs. A sustained local delivery of relatively low amounts of bioactive VEGF (3 ,g) with this system led to physiologic levels of bioactive VEGF in ischemic murine (ApoE,/,) hindlimbs for 15 days after injection of the gel, as contrasted with complete VEGF deprivation after 72 h with bolus injection. The gel delivery system resulted in significantly greater angiogenesis in these limbs as compared to bolus (266 vs. 161 blood vessels mm,2). Laser Doppler perfusion imaging showed return of tissue perfusion to normal levels by day 28 with the gel system, whereas normal levels of perfusion were never achieved with saline delivery of VEGF or in control mice. The system described in this article could represent an attractive new generation of therapeutic delivery vehicle for treatment of cardiovascular diseases, as it combines long-term in vivo therapeutic benefit (localized bioactive VEGF for 1,2 weeks) with minimally invasive delivery. [source]


Angiogenesis of the heart

MICROSCOPY RESEARCH AND TECHNIQUE, Issue 2 2003
Michael J.B. Kutryk
Abstract Despite continued advances in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease, there are still a large number of patients who are not candidates for the conventional revascularization techniques of balloon angioplasty and stenting, or coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Therapeutic angiogenesis, in the form of the administration of growth factor protein or gene therapy, has emerged as a promising new method of treatment for patients with coronary artery disease. The goal of this strategy is to promote the development of supplemental blood conduits that will act as endogenous bypass vessels. New vessel formation occurs through the processes of angiogenesis, vasculogenesis, and arteriogenesis, under the control of growth factors such as those that belong to the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and angiopoeitin (Ang) families of molecules. Preclinical studies have suggested that such an approach is both feasible and effective; however many questions remain to be answered. This review will address the elements of pharmacologic revascularization, focusing on gene and protein-based therapy. The important growth factors, the vector (for gene therapy), routes of delivery, the desired therapeutic effect, and quantifiable clinical end points for trials of angiogenesis will all be addressed. Microsc. Res. Tech. 60:138,158, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Gene and Cell Therapy for Heart Disease

IUBMB LIFE, Issue 2 2002
Regina M. Graham
Abstract Heart disease is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in Western society and the incidence is projected to increase significantly over the next few decades as our population ages. Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to pump blood at a rate to commensurate with tissue metabolic requirements and represents the end stage of a variety of pathological conditions. Causes of heart failure include ischemia, hypertension, coronary artery disease, and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Hypertension and ischemia both cause infarction with loss of function and a consequent contractile deficit that promotes ventricular remodeling. Remodeling results in dramatic alterations in the size, shape, and composition of the walls and chambers of the heart and can have both positive and negative effects on function. In 30-40% of patients with heart failure, left ventricular systolic function is relatively unaffected while diastolic dysfunction predominates. Recent progress in our understanding of the molecular and cellular bases of heart disease has provided new therapeutic targets and led to novel approaches including the delivery of proteins, genes, and cells to replace defective or deficient components and restore function to the diseased heart. This review focuses on three such strategies that are currently under development: (a) gene transfer to modulate contractility, (b) therapeutic angiogenesis for the treatment of ischemia, and (c) embryonic and adult stem cell transfer to replace damaged myocardium. [source]


Myocardial Gene Expression of Angiogenic Factors in Human Chronic Ischemic Myocardium: Influence of Acute Ischemia/Cardioplegia and Reperfusion

MICROCIRCULATION, Issue 3 2006
YONGZHONG WANG
ABSTRACT Objective: Angiogenic therapies in animals have demonstrated the development of new blood vessels within ischemic myocardium. However, results from clinical protein and gene angiogenic trials have been less impressive. The present study aimed to investigate the expression of angiogenic genes in human chronic ischemic myocardium and the influence of acute ischemia/cardioplegia and reperfusion on their expression. Methods: Myocardial biopsies were taken from chronic ischemic and nonischemic myocardium in 15 patients with stable angina pectoris during coronary bypass surgery. Tissue samples were evaluated by oligonucleotide microarray and quantitative real-time PCR for the expression of angiogenic factors. Results: There was identical baseline expression of VEGF-A and VEGF-C mRNA in chronic ischemic myocardium compared with nonischemic myocardium. Reperfusion increased the gene expression of VEGF-A and VEGF-C mRNA both in nonischemic and ischemic myocardium. VEGF-A protein was detected mainly in the extracellular matrix around the cardiomyocytes in ischemic myocardium. Conclusion: These data suggest that the nonconclusive VEGF gene therapy trials chronic coronary artery disease was not due to a preexisting upregulation of VEGF in chronic ischemic myocardium. There might be room for further therapeutic angiogenesis in chronic ischemic myocardium. [source]


A population analysis of VEGF transgene expression and secretion

BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOENGINEERING, Issue 5 2008
Golnaz Karoubi
Abstract The induction of therapeutic angiogenesis with gene therapy approaches has received considerable interest and some limited clinical success. A major drawback to this approach is a lack of understanding of the pharmacokinetics of therapeutic protein delivery. This has become increasingly more relevant as recent studies have illustrated a defined therapeutic window for angiogenic protein secretion into the local microenvironment. For cell based gene therapies, with cells widely distributed throughout the tissue, this implies that any individual cell must attain a specific secretion rate to produce a local angiogenic response. Here we report a reproducible technique enabling the study of growth factor secretion from individual cells following transient plasmid transfection. We demonstrate significant variability in single cell vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) secretion with the majority of total protein secretion arising from a small subpopulation of transfected cells. We demonstrate that VEGF secretion is linearly correlated to intracellular plasmid copy number and protein secretion does not appear to reach saturation within the cell population. The selection of gene therapy approaches that optimize individual cell secretion profiles may be essential for the development of effective gene therapies. Biotechnol. Bioeng. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


Fishing for novel angiogenic therapies

BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY, Issue 4 2003
Kameha R Kidd
The zebrafish has recently emerged as an important model for the study of vascular embryogenesis. Its genetic accessibility, external development, and optically clear embryo are just a few of the features that set the zebrafish apart as a particularly well-suited model for studying vascular development. However, there is little precedent for its use as a tool for the experimental study of therapeutic angiogenesis. Here, we review the use of the zebrafish for studying vascular development and patterning, and discuss how the zebrafish might be used more directly as a model for developing and testing effective therapeutic angiogenesis approaches. British Journal of Pharmacology (2003) 140, 585,594. doi:10.1038/sj.bjp.0705496 [source]