Neurotrophic Factors: Emerging Biology and Therapeutic Applications for Cardiovascular Diseases

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have emerged as a common health problem. However, despite their prevalence, little progress has been made in their treatment. In recent years, neurotrophic factors (NTFs) have been discovered to exert cardioprotective functions for CVDs. NTFs can modulate vascular integrity, myocardial remodeling, angiogenesis, and autonomic regulation, playing the roles of maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis and influencing disease progression. Under pathological conditions, the supplement of NTFs can induce substantial adaptations to mitigate adverse cardiac responses. Several NTFs have been investigated in this regard. This review briefly elaborates on present insights into the expression, signaling pathways, and regulatory effects of NTFs on the development of CVDs, and also discusses emerging therapeutic strategies based on NTFs, ranging from exercise to advanced modalities including stem cell therapy, gene transfer, recombinant protein therapy and NTF mimetics, among which the mimetics and exercise interventions emerge as the most promising avenues for clinical translation.

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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