New frontier in gene therapy for acute stroke

Abstract

Gene therapy is crucial to salvage neuron, glia and astrocyte in ischemic stroke, not only in the acute phase but also in the chronic phase. It may have a bright future, as they are now used in the clinic in the world for treating cancer and are under administrative review for the treatment of ischemic stroke.
Cumulative evidence revealed that apoptosis plays a pivotal role in neuronal cell death after cerebral ischemia in various experimental models, including gene therapy. The time-dependent molecular and biochemical sequelae that lead to apoptotic cell death after the interruption of cerebral blood flow have been established. Therefore, various kinds of anti-apoptotic protein or growth factor have been developed for gene therapy.
In this symposium, we introduced the benefit or side effect of many kinds of vectors for gene therapy, and also we showed our experimental on several kinds of brand-new neuroprotective compounds focused on the anti-apoptosis pathway after focal ischemia. Furthermore, we showed the gene-transferred Bcl-2, anti-apoptotic protein or GDNF, neurotrophic factor, have dramatically ameliorated the infarcted volume after focal ischemia.
These present data suggested that these newly developed gene therapy are effective for neuroprotection and neurorestoration after acute cerebral ischemia. We strongly hope this gene therapy will be adapted in clinical medical care for the patients with cerebral infarction, and these patients will be getting better in Quality of Life (QOL) after gene therapy in near future.