REVIEW - Nature or nurture: let food be your epigenetic medicine in chronic inflammatory disorders

[Guest guest]

Biochem Pharmacol. 2010 Dec 15;80(12):1816-32. Epub 2010 Aug 3.

Nature or nurture: let food be your epigenetic medicine in chronic

inflammatory disorders.

vel Szic KS, Ndlovu MN, Haegeman G, Vanden Berghe W.

Laboratory of Eukaryotic Gene Expression and Signal Transduction

(LEGEST), Department of Physiology, Ghent University, K.L.

Ledeganckstraat 35, Gent, Belgium.

Abstract

Numerous clinical, physiopathological and epidemiological studies have

underlined the detrimental or beneficial role of nutritional factors

in complex inflammation related disorders such as allergy, asthma,

obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis

and cancer.

Today, nutritional research has shifted from alleviating nutrient

deficiencies to chronic disease prevention. It is known that

lifestyle, environmental conditions and nutritional compounds

influence gene expression. Gene expression states are set by

transcriptional activators and repressors and are often locked in by

cell-heritable chromatin states.

Only recently, it has been observed that the environmental conditions

and daily diet can affect transgenerational gene expression via

" reversible " heritable epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetic changes in

DNA methylation patterns at CpG sites (epimutations) or corrupt

chromatin states of key inflammatory genes and noncoding RNAs,

recently emerged as major governing factors in cancer, chronic

inflammatory and metabolic disorders.

Reciprocally, inflammation, metabolic stress and diet composition can

also change activities of the epigenetic machinery and indirectly or

directly change chromatin marks. This has recently launched

re-exploration of anti-inflammatory bioactive food components for

characterization of their effects on epigenome modifying enzymatic

activities (acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation, ribosylation,

oxidation, ubiquitination, sumoylation). This may allow to improve

healthy aging by reversing disease prone epimutations involved in

chronic inflammatory and metabolic disorders.

PMID: 20688047

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20688047

Not an MD