NGF AND HEART: IS THERE A ROLE IN HEART DISEASE?

The review emphasizes the role of NGF, the most representative member of the neurotrophins family,
in cardiac physiopathology with a particular focus on healing and sprouting processes occurring after
tissue damage. Cardiac and circulating NGF levels dramatically increase following myocardial injury
(MI). A very early rise of this neurotrophin is indeed observed soon after MI (hours). Such a rise may
lead to sympathetic nerve sprouting which may underlie the later genesis of arrhythmias but may also
favor the healing process. At later times (months after), when heart failure develops, the opposite is
detected and NGF tissue levels are below the normal range, an event that may in turn participate to
defective innervation and cardiac failure. Through a careful analysis of preclinical and clinical studies, this
review proposes that time is the key variable when studying these opposite changes in NGF expression
observed following MI and attempting to interpret and correlate them with cardiac physiopathology.
The examination of the results leads to the speculation that NGF modulation may be a pharmacological
target for interventions in specific stages of heart dysfunction following MI.