Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are responsible for enormous socio-economic impact and the highest mortality globally. The standard of care for CVDs, which includes medications and surgical interventions, in most cases, can delay but not prevent the progression of disease. Gene therapy has been considered as a potential therapy to improve the outcomes of CVDs as it targets the molecular mechanisms implicated in heart failure. Cardiac reprogramming, therapeutic angiogenesis using growth factors, antioxidant, and anti-apoptotic therapies are the modalities of cardiac gene therapy that have led to promising results in preclinical studies. Despite the benefits observed in animal studies, the attempts to translate them to humans have been inconsistent so far. Low concentration of the gene product at the target site, incomplete understanding of the molecular pathways of the disease, selected gene delivery method, difference between animal models and humans among others are probable causes of the inconsistent results in clinics. In this review, we discuss the most recent applications of the aforementioned gene therapy strategies to improve cardiac tissue regeneration in preclinical and clinical studies as well as the challenges associated with them. In addition, we consider ongoing gene therapy clinical trials focused on cardiac regeneration in CVDs.
Keywords: apoptosis; cardiac regeneration; cardiac reprogramming; cardiovascular diseases; gene therapy; growth factors; reactive oxygen species; therapeutic angiogenesis.