[Gene therapy for cerebral infarction (cerebral ischemia)]

The treatment strategies of cerebral infarction have been studied in order to prevent neuronal cell death. Gene therapy is one of the most promising therapy and has several advantage over classical drug therapies. There has been a problem that drug proteins are unable or difficult to pass through blood brain barrier. In gene therapy, however, drug proteins are expressed in the brain with transgene transfer technique. Ischemic neural death proceeds with a complex series of pathophysiological events in the neurons. But molecular mechanism of ischemic neuronal cell death gradually understood. It has been known that a number of genes can be potent candidates for treatment factors of cerebral infarction. Actually, many investigators have been studied treatment strategies of cerebral infarction using a variety of neurotrophic factors such as bcl-2, heat shock protein 72, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). Moreover, the development of new vectors and gene delivery systems have been studied. Gene therapy would be a strong strategy for treatment of cerebral infarction in the future.