Notable epigenetic role of hyperhomocysteinemia in atherogenesis

Lipids in Health and Disease

Review

Gelin Xu¹  Shuyu Zhou¹  Zhizhong Zhang¹ 

[1]Department of Neurology, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, 305 East Zhongshan Road, 210002, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China

关键词: Atherosclerosis;    Epigenetics;    DNA methylation;    Hyperhomocysteinemia;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-511X-13-134

 received in 2014-07-16, accepted in 2014-08-15,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Atherosclerosis is associated with multiple genetic and modifiable risk factors. There is an increasing body of evidences to indicate that epigenetic mechanisms also play an essential role in atherogenesis by influencing gene expression. Homocysteine is a sulfur-containing amino acid formed during methionine metabolism. Elevated plasma level of homocysteine is generally termed as hyperhomocysteinemia. As a potential risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, hyperhomocysteinemia may initiate or motivate atherogenesis by modification of DNA methylation. The underlying epigenetic mechanism is still unclear with controversial findings. This review focuses on epigenetic involvement and mechanisms of hyperhomocysteinemia in atherogenesis. Considering the potential beneficial effects of anti-homocysteinemia treatments in preventing atherosclerosis, further studies on the role of hyperhomocysteinemia in atherogenesis are warranted.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Zhou et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.