Does gene therapy work? Nuclear medicine may provide the answers

French scientists, examining the possibility of using nuclear medicine with gene therapy to fight heart diseases, reported their findings at the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s 52nd Annual Meeting June 18–22 in Toronto.


Previous studies have suggested a beneficial effect of Cyr61–a cysteine-rich, angiogenic inducer protein–in rabbits submitted to ischemic limb disease. However, no data have been available on using Cyr61 in vivo for fighting chronic myocardial ischemia (insufficient blood flow and oxygen to the heart muscle).

“Cyr61 gene transfer appears potent in stimulation of myocardial angiogenesis–a novel gene therapeutic approach that seeks to induce the growth of new blood vessels in areas of the heart that are not sufficiently supplied by blood due to severe coronary artery disease,” said Pascal Merlet, M.D., Ph.D., nuclear medicine department, Hopital Bichat, Paris, France. “Our findings suggest that Cyr61 could be a therapeutic candidate for treating severe myocardial ischemic disease,” he added. The French scientists examined Cyr61’s effect in a porcine model of ischemic heart disease.

Ischemic heart disease is a term given to heart problems caused by narrowed heart arteries. When arteries are narrowed, less blood and oxygen reach the heart muscle. Also called coronary heart disease, it affects an estimated 14 million people in the United States.

“This is exciting news,” said Josef Machac, M.D., director of the Clinical PET Center and Nuclear Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, N.Y., and a vice chair of SNM’s Scientific Program Committee (Cardiovascular Track). “Molecular or nuclear imaging, with its use of radiopharmaceuticals and high imaging sensitivity, is in a unique position to study molecular and vascular biology.”

The authors of “Stimulation of Angiogenesis by Cyr61 Gene Therapy in a Porcine Model of Chronic Myocardial Ischemia” are Emmanuel Teiger, departement de cardiologie, Hopital Universitaire Henri Mondor, Creteil, France; Ramin Bazeli, Francois Rouzet, Rachida Lebtahi and Stephane Champagne, all departement de medecine nucleaire, Hopital Bichat, Paris, France; Luc Hittinger, departement de cardiologie, Hopital Universitaire Henri Mondor, Creteil, France; and Dominique Le Guludec and Pascal Merlet, both departement de medecine nucleaire, Hopital Bichat, Paris, France.

Media Contact

Maryann Verrillo EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.snm.org

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors