1. Biological pacemaker created by percutaneous gene delivery via venous catheters in a porcine model of complete heart block
- Author
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Hee Cheol Cho, Kristine Yee, Eugenio Cingolani, Sumeet S. Chugh, Eduardo Marbán, and Michael Shehata
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Biological pacemaker ,Radiofrequency ablation ,Heart block ,Swine ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Genetic Vectors ,Green Fluorescent Proteins ,Femoral vein ,Catheter ablation ,Ion Channels ,law.invention ,Adenoviridae ,law ,Biological Clocks ,Physiology (medical) ,Internal medicine ,Heart rate ,medicine ,Hyperpolarization-Activated Cyclic Nucleotide-Gated Channels ,Animals ,Potassium Channels, Inwardly Rectifying ,Electronic pacemaker ,business.industry ,Gene Transfer Techniques ,medicine.disease ,Catheter ,Disease Models, Animal ,Heart Block ,cardiovascular system ,Cardiology ,Catheter Ablation ,Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine ,business ,Electrophysiologic Techniques, Cardiac - Abstract
Pacemaker-dependent patients with device infection require temporary pacing while the infection is treated. External transthoracic pacing is painful and variably effective, while temporary pacing leads are susceptible to superinfection.To create a biological pacemaker delivered via venous catheters in a porcine model of complete heart block, providing a temporary alternative/adjunct to external pacing devices without additional indwelling hardware.Complete atrioventricular (AV) nodal block was induced in pigs by radiofrequency ablation after the implantation of a single-chamber electronic pacemaker to maintain a ventricular backup rate of 50 beats/min. An adenoviral vector cocktail (K(AAA) + H2), expressing dominant-negative inward rectifier potassium channel (Kir2.1AAA) and hyperpolarization-activated cation channel (HCN2) genes, was injected into the AV junctional region via a NOGA Myostar catheter advanced through the femoral vein.Animals injected with K(AAA) + H2 maintained a physiologically relevant ventricular rate of 93.5 ± 7 beats/min (n = 4) compared with control animals (average rate, 59.4 ± 4 beats/min; n = 6 at day 7 postinjection; P.05). Backup electronic pacemaker utilization decreased by almost 4-fold in the K(AAA) + H2 group compared with the control (P.05), an effect maintained for the entire 14-day window. In contrast to the efficacy of gene delivery into the AV junctional region, open-chest, direct injection of K(AAA) + H2 (or its individual vectors) into the ventricular myocardium failed to elicit significant pacemaker activity.The right-sided delivery of K(AAA) + H2 to the AV junctional region provided physiologically relevant biological pacing over a 14-day period. Our approach may provide temporary, bridge-to-device pacing for the effective clearance of infection prior to the reimplantation of a definitive electronic pacemaker.
- Published
- 2012