MESSAGE
| DATE | 2005-09-28 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Next Step Medicine
|
Gene Therapy To Lower Blood Pressure Just Enough
HOUSTON -- (Sept. 27, 2005) -- A newly developed virus that introduces a
blood pressure-lowering gene into cells and enables that gene to
maintain blood pressure at healthy levels for four months promises to
take gene therapy for the disorder a step closer to reality, said
researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report released online in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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section:
Health &
Medicine
"High blood pressure is one of the leading causes of death and
disability in adults worldwide," said Dr. Bert O'Malley, chair of the
BCM department of molecular and cellular biology. "A therapy that could
control blood pressure could have important benefits for individuals and
for the health of the world's population as well."
The gene in question -- atrial natriuretic peptide or ANP -- promises to
control blood pressure through a variety of effects on key areas
involved in the problem of hypertension, including the relaxation of
smooth muscle cells in blood vessels, increasing the vessels' diameters,
and reducing the manner in which the vessels react to agents that can
constrict those vessels. ANP also improves the manner in which the
kidney eliminates sodium or salt from the body and inhibits other
systems, such as the sympathetic nervous system, believed linked to
development of high blood pressure.
"This makes ANP an attractive agent for use in treating blood pressure,"
said O'Malley. "However, its use is limited by the fact that it has such
short-lived activity in the blood system."
Its activity is halved 30 seconds after it enters the blood stream.
Gene therapy can make cells generate more ANP. In previous studies,
however, this kind of gene reduced blood pressure to dangerously low
levels, said O'Malley. Obviously, a method of controlling the gene and
the amount of ANP a cell makes was needed.
The special viral vector developed by O'Malley and his colleagues
combines a special kind of adenovirus altered so it does not produce
disease connected to a gene regulatory system turned on by the drug
mifepristone.
Using this vector, O'Malley and his colleagues were able to introduce
the ANP gene into the cells of mice. Then tiny doses of drug turned on
the regulatory system, which controlled the amount of ANP made so that
blood pressure remained at healthy levels for 125 days - 74 days longer
than in any previous gene therapy study. Other studies indicate that the
therapy could reduce the heart-weight/body-weight ratio. For this reason
it has promise in reducing some of the organ damage that occurs as a
result of high blood pressure.
One question that remains is whether the body will accept repeated
injections of the viral vector or whether its immune system eventually
react against it, said O'Malley.
###
Others who participated in this research include Drs. Kurt J.
Schillinger, Sophia Y. Tsai, George E. Taffet, Anilkumar K. Reddy, Ali
J. Marian, Mark L. Entman, Kazuhiro Oka, and Lawrence Chan, all of
Baylor College of Medicine. This research was funded by the National
Institutes of Health.
________________________________________________________________________
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Baylor College
of Medicine.
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