Cai Menghua, Zhang Xiangjin, He Wei, Zhang Jianmin
State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Department of Immunology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
Front Genet. 2020 Dec 8;11:614666. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2020.614666. eCollection 2020.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent cause of dementia among neurodegenerative diseases. Two factors were hypothesized to be involved in the pathogenesis of AD, namely beta-amyloid cascade and tauopathy. At present, accumulating evidence suggest that epigenetics may be the missing linkage between genes and environment factors, providing possible clues to understand the etiology of the development of AD. In this article, we focus on DNA methylation and histone modification involved in AD and the environment factor of heavy metals' contribution to AD, especially epigenetic mechanisms. If we can integrate information together, and that may find new potential targets for the treatment.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）是神经退行性疾病中导致痴呆的最常见原因。有两个因素被认为与AD的发病机制有关，即β-淀粉样蛋白级联反应和tau蛋白病变。目前，越来越多的证据表明，表观遗传学可能是基因与环境因素之间缺失的联系，为理解AD发生发展的病因提供了可能的线索。在本文中，我们重点关注AD中涉及的DNA甲基化和组蛋白修饰以及重金属环境因素对AD的影响，尤其是表观遗传机制。如果我们能将这些信息整合起来，可能会找到新的潜在治疗靶点。
