Nanomedicine for Gene Delivery for the Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

Background: Myocardial infarction (MI) is the most severe ischemic heart disease and directly leads to heart failure till death. Target molecules have been identified in the event of MI including increasing angiogenesis, promoting cardiomyocyte survival, improving heart function and restraining inflammation and myocyte activation and subsequent fibrosis. All of which are substantial in cardiomyocyte protection and preservation of cardiac function. Methodology: To modulate target molecule expression, virus and non-virus-mediated gene transfer have been investigated. Despite successful in animal models of MI, virus-mediated gene transfer is hampered by poor targeting efficiency, low packaging capacity for large DNA sequences, immunogenicity induced by virus and random integration into the human genome. Discussion: Nanoparticles could be synthesized and equipped on purpose for large-scale production. They are relatively small in size and do not incorporate into the genome. They could carry DNA and drug within the same transfer. All of these properties make them an alternative strategy for gene transfer. In the review, we first introduce the pathological progression of MI. After concise discussion on the current status of virus-mediated gene therapy in treating MI, we overview the history and development of nanoparticle-based gene delivery system. We point out the limitations and future perspective in the field of nanoparticle vehicle. Conclusion: Ultimately, we hope that this review could help to better understand how far we are with nanoparticle-facilitated gene transfer strategy and what obstacles we need to solve for utilization of nanomedicine in the treatment of MI.

Nanotechnology in cardiac stem cell therapy: cell modulation, imaging and gene delivery

“…Transfection of MSCs with VEGF cDNA or HGF cDNA followed by a myocardial injection to the border of infarcted cardiomyocytes already has shown good results. 133,134 Similarly, the facially amphipathic bile acid-modied PEI (BA-PEI) conjugates have shown higher transfection efficiency, which subsequently enhanced VEGF expression and angiogenesis at the injury site. 135 Although virus-mediated gene transfer has shown encouraging results with respect to cardiomyocyte survival, cardiac function and reduced brosis in mice, the associated safety and ethical issues hinder its translation from animal studies to clinical practice.…”

“…Transfection of MSCs with VEGF cDNA or HGF cDNA followed by a myocardial injection to the border of infarcted cardiomyocytes already has shown good results. 133,134 Similarly, the facially amphipathic bile acid-modified PEI (BA-PEI) conjugates have shown higher transfection efficiency, which subsequently enhanced VEGF expression and angiogenesis at the injury site. 135 …”

<p>Nanoparticle-Mediated Drug Delivery for the Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases</p>

“…Safety issues related to the treatment are their immunogenicity, unpredicted insertion site in the genome of humans, and poor targeting efficiency. 131 Nanoparticles mediated gene delivery to improve cardiac function provides a promising alternative in the field. Nanoparticles have used for gene delivery due to their small size that enables a smooth and efficient penetration to the cells.…”

Trends and Hotspots in Nanoparticles for the Targeted Delivery of Nucleic Acids: A Ten-Year Bibliometric Study

“…Suitable vectors prevent naked nucleic acids introduced into the body from ubiquitous nucleases and renal elimination, and facilitate the process of targeted delivery and efficient internalization ( Ren et al, 2021 ). Nonviral carriers, especially nanoparticles, have demonstrated tremendous potential in the targeted delivery of genetic material in treating hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis, pancreatic cancer, and other diseases with lower immunogenicity, with larger loading capacity, and being free from unexpected gene integration when compared to viral vectors ( Ohno et al, 2013 ; Kamerkar et al, 2017 ; Adams et al, 2018 ; Yan et al, 2019 ; Cheng et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2021 ). Nanotechnology is widely used in the medical industry and forms an important class of drug and nucleic acid delivery systems to accelerate the effect of drugs in the human body ( Ravindran et al, 2018 ).…”