Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggest that vascular endothelial growth factor 121 may be an optimal target gene for the treatment of acute myocardial infarction.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate effect of direct myocardial injection of adenovirus recombinant human vascular endothelial growth factor 121 gene (Ad-hVEGF121) on myocardial infracted rat heart structure, function and angiogenesis.
METHODS: Totally 78 male SD rats were randomly divided into the sham-surgery (n=18), acute myocardial infarction (n=24), Ad-VEGF121 (n=19) and normal saline (n=17) groups. Among them, left anterior descending coronary arteries of the latter three groups were ligated to prepare acute myocardial infarction models and rats were randomly selected to receive Ad-hVEGF12 or normal saline via three points in the cardiac muscle at the 10-15 minutes after ligation. The chest was exposed without ligation in the sham-surgery group.  RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: At 2 weeks after injection, cardiac ultrasound showed that, compared with the sham-surgery group, the number of new capillaries, body weight and left ventricular mass / body weight of the acute myocardial infarction, Ad-hVEGF121 and normal saline groups were obviously increased (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01), especially those received transfected rAd-hVEGF12, had higher density of blood capillaries than those of the normal saline and acute myocardial infarction groups. However, there were no obviously differences between each group in infarct size, cardiac structure or functions. The direct myocardial injection of Ad-VEGF121 can significantly promote the formation of new blood vessels within the myocardium.