Hypotensive oligonucleotides
Russian scientists have created a gene therapy for the treatment of hypertension
Biologists from Novosibirsk for the first time used gene therapy to reduce blood pressure in rats suffering from hypertension, lowering it for 2-3 weeks after just one dose of the drug, according to an article published in the journal Biochemistry: On the way to the gene therapy of hypertension: an experimental study on hypertensive rats of the NISAG line (ISIAH).
"The nanocomposites we used contain DNA fragments aimed at certain genes involved in the development of hypertension. It turned out that the introduction into the abdominal cavity or inhalation of these drugs lowers blood pressure, and for quite a long time, unlike standard drugs that must be taken every day," says Asya Levina from Novosibirsk State University.
According to WHO statistics, heart and vascular diseases, including heart attacks, strokes and chronic heart failure, are the main cause of death in the world. About 17 million people die from them every year, and one of the main causes of the development of these diseases remains hypertension, which develops due to poor nutrition, sedentary lifestyle and bad habits.
Levina and her colleagues from the NSU and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, experimenting with so–called oligonucleotides - short DNA chains of 10-20 "letters"- nucleotides, have created a fundamentally new method of combating hypertension, allowing to get rid of high blood pressure for a very long time.
Such chains, as scientists have recently found out, can noticeably change the work of human or animal genes, increasing or decreasing their activity. This prompted Russian biologists to think that oligonucleotides can be used to combat hypertension by changing the work of genes that control the expansion and narrowing of the walls of blood vessels.
Guided by this idea, Levina's team synthesized a large number of oligonucleotides interacting with the ACE1 gene. This section of DNA, as scientists explain, is responsible for the synthesis of the angiotensin protein, the release of which into the bloodstream leads to vasoconstriction and increased pressure. Accordingly, blocking or limiting its operation will lead to the fact that the pressure will drop or will not rise above a certain level when the load or stress increases.
Scientists tested this idea by attaching chains of oligonucleotides that inhibit the work of ACE1 to titanium oxide nanoparticles capable of penetrating into cells, and injected them into the body of several rats bred at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS specifically for the study of hypertension. These animals, as scientists note, begin to suffer from high blood pressure even with the slightest increase in stress levels, which in many ways mimics how hypertension "works" in the body of many elderly people.
As experiments have shown, the nanoparticles successfully coped with the task and saved the rodents from hypertension for several weeks. Interestingly, nanoparticles and oligonucleotides can be injected into the body not only with injections, but also through an inhaler, which makes such a medicine noticeably more convenient for patients. Scientists emphasize that all this is still the fruit of laboratory research and the appearance of such drugs in pharmacies should be expected no earlier than in a few years, when such gene therapy will pass all clinical tests and animal trials.
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07.07.2017