Cardioprotective growth factors

Many of the originally identified cardiovascular 'growth factors' have been demonstrated to exert a diverse variety of actions within the cardiovascular system, the majority of which are unrelated to their initially proposed mechanism of action. Interestingly, several of these growth factors have been demonstrated to protect the cardiomyocyte from the detrimental effects of acute ischaemia-reperfusion injury, through the activation of a variety of cell-surface receptors and the subsequent recruitment of a number of intracellular signal transduction pathways, which include components of the reperfusion injury salvage kinase pathway. This article will review several of these cardioprotective growth factors with respect to their ability to confer direct myocardial protection, focusing on the underlying signalling pathways involved and their potential for clinical application.