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(Circulation. 2000;101:1498.)
© 2000 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Gene Therapy for Common Acquired Diseases of the Heart

The Sirens’ Song

Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD

From the Institute of Molecular Cardiobiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md.

Correspondence to Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD, Institute of Molecular Cardiobiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Room 844, Ross Bldg, 720 Rutland Ave, Baltimore, MD 21205. E-mail marban@jhmi.edu

Key Words: Editorials • gene therapy • heart diseases

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Then the queenly Circe spoke in words and addressed me: You will come first of all to the Sirens, who are enchanters of all mankind and whoever comes their way; and that man who unsuspecting approaches them, and listens to the Sirens singing, has no prospect of coming home. You must drive straight on past... Homer, The Odyssey

The prospect of using genes as therapeutic agents presents myriad opportunities. No physician could fail to appreciate the power of this approach: why not abandon the shackles of the limited pharmacological and device repertoire and focus instead on reengineering the culprit tissue by somatic gene transfer? The explosion of genomic information leaves us with an embarrassment of riches in terms of potential therapeutic agents. Why draw the line at nature’s own genes expressed in their usual settings? Genes can readily be tailored to exhibit special properties not found in nature, altering the function of their protein products for specific ends. Alternatively, wild-type genes can be expressed in tissues where they are normally silent.

In this issue, Weig et al¹ describe a clever application of the latter approach: V2 vasopressin receptor genes, usually expressed only in kidney, were delivered to myocardium packaged in recombinant adenoviruses. Expression of these adenyl cyclase–activating receptors in the myocardium converted the basal negative inotropic response to infused vasopressin into a positive one. Because vasopressin levels are elevated in heart failure, a situation in which ß-receptors are uncoupled from cyclase,² ectopic expression of V2 receptors would logically be predicted . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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