Growth Factors: Avenues for the Treatment of Myocardial Infarction and Potential Delivery Strategies

Abstract

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Despite recent advances in clinical management, reoccurence of heart failure after AMI remains high, in part because of the limited capacity of cardiac tissue to repair after AMI-induced cell death. Growth factor-based therapy has emerged as an alternative AMI treatment strategy. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of growth factor cardioprotective and regenerative actions is important. This review focuses on the function of different growth factors at each stage of the cardiac repair process. Recent evidence for growth factor therapy in preclinical and clinical trials is included. Finally, different delivery strategies are reviewed with a view to providing workable strategies for clinical translation.

Injectable Peptide Hydrogels Loaded with Murine Embryonic Stem Cells Relieve Ischemia In Vivo after Myocardial Infarction

“…Hence, pathological changes that led to quick death were not analyzed, leading to some survivorship bias. We acknowledge the potential teratogenicity of stem cells, which has limited some translational applications, thus warranting potential future studies that demonstrate acellular approaches; scaffold-driven signaling using growth factors (mimics or whole growth factor), exosomes, or gene therapy products from delivery hydrogels may help recruit native cell populations, augmenting or supplanting transplanted cells. − Additionally, while there is a focus on acute MI in this study, the effect of scaffold and cell combinations that can mitigate chronic MI pathology and aid in tissue remodeling and regeneration are also critical to consider in future work …”