Abstract

Tendon injuries are one of the most common causes of orthopedic disorders in horses. Such injuries involve a long course of treatment and recovery. The most promising method of treating these injuries is the use of recombinant proteins and gene therapy. A plasmid DNA construct was used to restore the damaged superficial digital flexor tendon in the horse. In this work, we evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of plasmid DNA containing two species-specific coding sequences of vascular endothelial growth factor 164 and fibroblast growth factor 2 in the treatment of severe damage to the tendon of the superficial digital flexor. The study showed that administration of plasmid DNA encoding vascular endothelial growth factor 164 and fibroblast growth factor 2 genes at the injury area increased the regenerative activities of the damaged tendon.

Key words: fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), plasmid DNA, superficial digital flexor, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)