Gene Therapy for Traumatic Central Nervous System Injury and Stroke Using an Engineered Zinc Finger Protein that Upregulates VEGF-A

Abstract Recent studies have identified anti-apoptotic functions for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the central nervous system (CNS). However, VEGF therapy has been hampered by a tendency to promote vascular permeability, edema, and inflammation. Recently, engineered zinc finger proteins (ZFPs) that upregulate multiple forms of VEGF in their natural biological ratios, have been developed to overcome these negative side effects. We used retinal trauma and ischemia models, and a cortical pial strip ischemia model to determine if VEGF upregulating ZFPs are neuroprotective in the adult CNS. Optic nerve transection and ophthalmic artery ligation lead to the apoptotic degeneration of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and are, respectively, two highly reproducible models for CNS trauma or ischemia. Adeno-associated vectors (AAV) vectors encoding VEGF-ZFPs (AAV-VEGF-ZFP) significantly increased RGC survival by ∼twofold at 14 days after optic nerve transection or ophthalmic artery ligation. Furthermore, ...