Gene Therapy Targets and the Role of Pharmacogenomics in Heart Failure

Lykouras, Dimosthenis; Flordellis, Christodoulos S.; Dougenis, Dimitrios

doi:10.5772/20004

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…The utilization of genetic engineering technology to facilitate angiogenesis in the infarcted area, to rescue the dying myocardium and to improve cardiac function has become a focus of research in recent years (2). A large number of experimental and clinical studies have demonstrated that genetic engineering technology can be used to improve local blood infusion and restore impaired heart function in the ischemic myocardium (3)(4)(5). However, previous studies have usually focused on the role of a single factor, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) in angiogenesis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recombinant AAV-PR39-mediated hypoxia-inducible factor 1α gene expression attenuates myocardial infarction

Sun

Hao

Nie

et al. 2013

International Journal of Molecular Medicine

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PR39 is an angiogenic masterswitch protein, belonging to the second generation of angiogenic growth factors. However, the role of recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) carrying the PR39 fusion gene (AAV-PR39) in acute myocardial infarction remains unclear. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the role of AAV-PR39 in an experimental animal model of acute myocardial infarction. The PR39 gene was fused with the transmembrane peptide, TAT, 6xHis‑tag and NT4 signal sequences. AAV-PR39 was then obtained by calcium phosphate co-precipitation. A total of 18 healthy Chinese mini pigs were randomly divided into an experimental groups (the AAV-PR39-treated group) and a control group [phosphated-buffered saline (PBS)-treated group]. Following the induction of myocardial infarction, enhanced 3.0T MR imaging was performed to observe the changes in myocardial signal intensity at 0 h, 1, 2 and 3 weeks. The expression of hypoxia-inducible factor‑1α (HIF-1α) in the myocardial tissues was determined by SABC immunohistochemistry. In addition, in vitro experiments using CRL-1730 endothelial cells transfected with AAV vector containing NT4-TAT-His-PR39 revealed that the AAV-PR39-treated group had a significantly higher expression of HIF-1α compared with the control group. Moreover, PR39 regulated the HIF-1α-induced expression of angiogenic growth factors. Under hypoxic conditions, the anti-apoptotic effects in the AAV-PR39 group were more pronounced than those observed in the control (PBS-treated) group. In vivo, the enforced expression of recombinant PR39 elevated the level of HIF-1α under hypoxic conditions and decreased the size of the infarcted areas by upregulating the expression of HIF-1α in the areas surrounding the infarct area. Taken together, our data demonstrate that the recombinant AAV-PR39-mediated HIF-1α expression attenuates myocardial infarction, indicating that AAV-PR39 may serve as a novel therapeutic agent for the treatment of myocardial infarction.

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