Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 15, Issue 24, 2009

Ischemic cardiovascular diseases, such as coronary artery disease and peripheral arterial disease, are significant medical problems worldwide and, in particular, coronary artery disease remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western world. Despite significant progress in revascularization procedures, a substantial number of patients with ischemic cardiovascular diseases are either not candidates for these Read More

It is a widely accepted view that vascular repair results from migration and proliferation of adjacent vascular cells. On the other hand, accumulating evidence suggests that bone marrow cells can give rise to endothelial-like cells and smooth muscle-like cells that potentially contribute to vascular healing, remodeling and lesion formation under physiological and pathological conditions. However, some recent reports indicated contr Read More

Critical limb ischemia (CLI) is a terminal stage of peripheral artery disease (PAD). The number of patients with CLI is increasing, and the disease has a major impact on patients' quality of life. In spite of the marked advances in surgery and interventional angioplasty, a large number of patients require revascularization. To treat these patients, cell based angiogenesis is attracting a great deal of attention as a new strategy. “Ther Read More

Vasculopathy in patients with connective tissue diseases (CTDs), including systemic sclerosis (SSc) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), is a serious complication that mainly affects small arteries and capillaries, reduces the blood flow and causes progressive tissue ischemia. Recently, CTD patients have been reported to have abnormalities in circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs); these abnormalities are believe Read More

Therapeutic angiogenesis is an important means to salvage tissues against severe ischemic diseases in patients with no option for other vascular intervention. A number of recent studies implicated potentials of cell-based therapeutic angiogenesis using autologous bone marrow mononuclear cells, CD34+ cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and so on. Subcutaneous adipose tissues can be harvested by relatively easy me Read More

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) can self-renew indefinitely, while maintaining the capacity to differentiate into useful somatic cell types, including cardiomyocytes. As such, these stem cell types represent an essentially inexhaustible source of committed human cardiomyocytes of potential use in cellbased cardiac therapies, high-throughput screening and safety testing of new Read More

Regenerative therapy has currently emerged as one of the most promising treatments for the patients suffering from severe heart failure. Several cell therapies by direct injection have been already clinically performed. However, significant cell loss due to physical strain, primary hypoxia or cell wash-out has become problematic. To overcome this obstacle, tissue engineered myocardial patch transplantation has been examined Read More

Hypertension is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) are a class of antihypertensive drugs with established efficacy and favorable safety profile. Telmisartan, a member of the ARB family, holds some additional traits which differentiate it from the rest ARBs. A pivotal role in these characteristics plays its ability to partially activate the peroxisome proliferator activated recep Read More

The mechanism is presented whereby simultaneous hydrolysis of two molecules of ATP in the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) exporter protein, Sav 1866, opens a transmembrane channel to pump drug out of the cell and confers drug resistance, e.g., gives rise to methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA. The proposed mechanism suggests pharmaceutical design strategies for overloading the capacity of two Read More