Gene therapy and tissue engineering for sports medicine

Abstract

Sports injuries usually involve tissues that display a limited capacity for healing. The treatment of sports injuries has improved over the past 10 to 20 years through sophisticated rehabilitation programs, novel operative techniques, and advances in the field of biomechanical research. Despite this considerable progress, no optimal solution has been found for treatment of various sports-related injuries, including muscle injuries, ligament and tendon ruptures, central meniscal tears, cartilage lesions, and delayed bone fracture healing. New biological approaches focus on the treatment of these injuries with growth factors to stimulate and hasten the healing process. Gene therapy using the transfer of defined genes encoding therapeutic proteins represents a promising way to efficiently deliver suitable growth factors into the injured tissue. Tissue engineering, which may eventually be combined with gene therapy, may potentially result in the creation of tissues or scaffolds for regeneration of tissue defects following trauma. In this article we will discuss why gene therapy and tissue engineering are becoming increasingly important in modern orthopaedic sports medicine practice. We then will review recent research achievements in the area of gene therapy and tissue engineering for sports-related injuries, and highlight the potential clinical applications of this technology in the treatment of patients with musculoskeletal problems following sports-related injuries.

Genska Terapija I Njena Implikacija U Sportu

“…Gene therapy techniques may allow alteration of local NO concentrations. Ongoing studies are beginning to provide answers on many questions and may allow for the eventual clinical use of gene therapy in the treatment of musculo-skeletal injury (Huard, Li, Peng, & Fu, 2003).…”

Terapia gênica, doping genético e esporte: fundamentação e implicações para o futuro

“…The genetic material inserted in the patient's cells may generate the functional form of a protein which due to structural alterations in this gene, is produced in small or with biological activity amounts. It is also possible to regulate the expression, activate or inactivate other genes (17,(28)(29) .…”

“…According to what has been mentioned before, the genetic reconstruction techniques of injured tissues could be widely used in the sports field for the treatment and rehabilitation of injuries (21) . The transfer of genes which code growth factors could facilitate as well as improve the treatment of osteo-musculo-articular injuries which currently require surgery and long period of rehabilitation (17) .…”

“…Since it is still in eminently experimental character stage, there are problems in the gene therapy application, being its risks control one of the most important (7)(8)(9)(10)(11) . However, studies in animal models (2,(12)(13)(14)(15) as well as some studies in humans (1,(6)(7)(16)(17)(18)(19) have presented promising results.…”

“…In addition to that, the majority of the sportive injuries involve tissues of difficult regeneration, such as tendons, ligaments, and cartilage (17,21) . The gene therapy could, therefore, have a very important application in the sportive field, allowing among other applications the reconstitution of injured tissues.…”