Greer Judith M, McCombe Pamela A
The University of Queensland, UQ Centre for Clinical Research, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Biologics. 2012;6:307-27. doi: 10.2147/BTT.S24067. Epub 2012 Sep 6.
The lack of complete concordance of autoimmune disease in identical twins suggests that nongenetic factors play a major role in determining disease susceptibility. In this review, we consider how epigenetic mechanisms could affect the immune system and effector mechanisms in autoimmunity and/or the target organ of autoimmunity and thus affect the development of autoimmune diseases. We also consider the types of stimuli that lead to epigenetic modifications and how these relate to the epidemiology of autoimmune diseases and the biological pathways operative in different autoimmune diseases. Increasing our knowledge of these epigenetic mechanisms and processes will increase the prospects for controlling or preventing autoimmune diseases in the future through the use of drugs that target the epigenetic pathways.
同卵双胞胎中自身免疫性疾病缺乏完全一致性，这表明非遗传因素在决定疾病易感性方面起主要作用。在本综述中，我们探讨表观遗传机制如何影响自身免疫中的免疫系统和效应机制及自身免疫的靶器官，从而影响自身免疫性疾病的发展。我们还考虑导致表观遗传修饰的刺激类型，以及这些刺激与自身免疫性疾病的流行病学和不同自身免疫性疾病中起作用的生物学途径之间的关系。增加我们对这些表观遗传机制和过程的了解，将增加未来通过使用靶向表观遗传途径的药物来控制或预防自身免疫性疾病的前景。
