Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States.
Epigenomics Program, Center for Individualized Medicine, Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, and Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, United States.
Anal Chem. 2020 Jun 16;92(12):7989-7997. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.0c01288. Epub 2020 Jun 4.
Personalizing health care by taking genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors into account is central to modern medicine. The crucial and pervasive roles epigenetic factors play in shaping gene-environment interactions are now well recognized. However, identifying robust epigenetic biomarkers and translating them to clinical tests has been difficult due in part to limitations of available platforms to detect epigenetic features genome-wide (epigenomic assays). This Feature introduces several important prospects for precision epigenomics, highlights capabilities and limitations of current laboratory technologies, and emphasizes opportunities for microfluidic tools to facilitate translation of epigenetic analyses to the clinic, with a particular focus on methods to profile gene-associated histone modifications and their impacts on chromatin structure and gene expression.
个性化医疗是指在医疗实践中综合考虑个体的遗传、环境和生活方式等因素。目前，人们已经充分认识到表观遗传因素在调节基因-环境相互作用方面发挥着关键而普遍的作用。然而，由于目前的全基因组检测平台（表观基因组分析）在检测表观遗传特征方面存在局限性，因此确定稳健的表观遗传生物标志物并将其转化为临床检测一直具有挑战性。本文主要介绍了精准表观基因组学的几个重要前景，重点介绍了当前实验室技术的功能和局限性，并强调了微流控工具在将表观遗传学分析转化为临床实践方面的机会，特别关注了分析与基因相关的组蛋白修饰及其对染色质结构和基因表达影响的方法。
