Gene therapy as a potential treatment for restenosis and myocardial infarction.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in developed countries. Most conventional therapy is inefficient and tends to treat the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the disorder. Gene therapy offers a novel approach for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Gene transfer into somatic cells to interfere with the pathogenetic processes contributing to cardiovascular disease may provide such a novel approach for better prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disorders. The major development of gene transfer has importantly contributed to intense investigation of the potential of gene therapy in cardiovascular medicine. The amazing advances in molecular biology have provided a dramatic improvement in the technology that is necessary to transfer target genes into somatic cells. Recently, transfection of cis element double-stranded oligonucleotides (ODN), referred to as decoy ODN, has been reported to be a powerful tool in a new class of antigene strategies for gene therapy. In this article, we review the successful treatment of restenosis and myocardial infarction using the decoy strategy combined with an efficient gene transfer method.