Pharmacological Application of Growth Factors: Basic and Clinical

Growth factors are signaling molecules that are typically secreted at the site of repair by many different cell types including platelets, stem cells, and fibroblasts. Since Montal-cini and Hamburger first described the nerve growth factor (NGF) in 1951, this epoch-making discovery has initiated the detection of a multitude of other growth factors that alter cell growth, cell differentiation, and proliferation, which is essential for wound healing and tissue repair and regenera-tion. Several growth factors such as fibroblast growth factor (FGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), and nerve growth factor (NGF) play a key role in brain or spinal cord injury and acute organ injuries. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) increases vascular permeability, induces angiogene-sis, vasculogenesis, which is applied in treatment of ischemic heart disease. Treatment with growth factors is beginning to gain worldwide prevalence, mainly in plastic and reconstructive surgery. However, the molecular mechanisms of growth factors treatment are still undefined. Thus, further investigations on mechanisms of growth factors in basic and clinical research are urgent. Therefore, we have invited the researchers to contribute few research/review papers to provide evidence that supports the application of growth factor in prevention or treatment of diseases. In this special issue, we have invited some papers hoping to shed light on some aspects of this very interesting field. We have collected 8 papers by scientists from 4 countries. In the submitted research papers, H. Wang et al. summarize the current understanding of the NGF signaling in retina and the therapeutic implications in the treatment of glaucoma. NGF offers the promise of actually restoring visual function through acting on the TrkA receptor; however, the future of NGF-dependent treatments in the armamentarium of glau-coma therapy as most of the present studies were in animal models, hence, randomized, controlled glaucoma clinical trials need to be performed to evaluate the therapeutic effect of NGF in the treatment of glaucoma. While M. Ammendola et al. review antitumor and antiangiogenic potential of three agents which are able to inhibit the functions of mast cells (MCs) tryptase: gabexate mesylate, nafamostat mesylate, and tranilast, the authors suggest that future awaited clinical studies aim to evaluate the truly efficacy of the tryptase inhibitors as a novel tumor antiangiogenic therapy. J. Cai et al. concluded the neuroprotective efficacy of neurotrophins (NTs) (NGF, BDNF, FGF-2, IGF, NT3, and NT4/5) in animal models, highlighted outstanding technical challenges, and discussed more recent attempts to harness the neuropro-tective capacity …