[Gene therapy concepts for promoting wound healing].

Growth factors are important players in orchestrating all stages of wound healing. They are mitogen, chemotactic, they regulate cell-cell interactions and influence synthesis and composition of extra-cellular matrix components. The use of growth factors to stimulate wound healing is a promising new therapeutic approach to repair chronic tissue defects. The delivery of genetic material offers an attractive treatment modality to produce an appropriate amount of growth factor proteins within the wound site. This review discusses several methods of growth factor gene transfer into wound tissue and presents recent experimental results of gene therapy approaches in stimulating wound repair.