Dimauro Teresa, David Gregory
Department of Pharmacology, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA.
Aging (Albany NY). 2009 Feb 13;1(2):182-90. doi: 10.18632/aging.100023.
An emerging field of investigation in the search for treatment of human disease is the modulation of chromatin modifications. Chromatin modifications impart virtually all processes occurring in the mammalian nucleus, from regulation of transcription to genomic stability and nuclear high order organization. It has been well recognized that, as the mammalian cell ages, its chromatin structure evolves, both at a global level and at specific loci. While these observations are mostly correlative, recent technical developments allowing loss-of-function experiments and genome-wide approaches have permitted the identification of a causal relationship between specific changes in chromatin structure and the aging phenotype. Here we review the evidence pointing to the modulation of chromatin structure as a potential driving force of cellular aging in mammals.
在寻找人类疾病治疗方法的过程中，一个新兴的研究领域是染色质修饰的调控。染色质修饰几乎影响着哺乳动物细胞核内发生的所有过程，从转录调控到基因组稳定性和核高级结构组织。人们已经充分认识到，随着哺乳动物细胞的衰老，其染色质结构在整体水平和特定基因座都会发生变化。虽然这些观察大多只是相关性的，但最近允许进行功能丧失实验和全基因组方法的技术发展，使得人们能够确定染色质结构的特定变化与衰老表型之间的因果关系。在这里，我们综述了表明染色质结构调控是哺乳动物细胞衰老潜在驱动力的证据。
