Radiobiology Unit, Institute for Environment, Health and Safety, Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK CEN), Mol, Belgium.
Laboratory of Physiopharmacology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium.
Epigenetics. 2022 Jan;17(1):59-80. doi: 10.1080/15592294.2021.1873628. Epub 2021 Jan 31.
Radiotherapy in cancer treatment involves the use of ionizing radiation for cancer cell killing. Although radiotherapy has shown significant improvements on cancer recurrence and mortality, several radiation-induced adverse effects have been documented. Of these adverse effects, radiation-induced cardiovascular disease (CVD) is particularly prominent among patients receiving mediastinal radiotherapy, such as breast cancer and Hodgkin's lymphoma patients. A number of mechanisms of radiation-induced CVD pathogenesis have been proposed such as endothelial inflammatory activation, premature endothelial senescence, increased ROS and mitochondrial dysfunction. However, current research seems to point to a so-far unexamined and potentially novel involvement of epigenetics in radiation-induced CVD pathogenesis. Firstly, epigenetic mechanisms have been implicated in CVD pathophysiology. In addition, several studies have shown that ionizing radiation can cause epigenetic modifications, especially DNA methylation alterations. As a result, this review aims to provide a summary of the current literature linking DNA methylation to radiation-induced CVD and thereby explore DNA methylation as a possible contributor to radiation-induced CVD pathogenesis.
放射治疗在癌症治疗中涉及使用电离辐射来杀死癌细胞。尽管放射治疗已经显示出在癌症复发和死亡率方面的显著改善，但已经记录了几种放射诱导的不良反应。在这些不良反应中，放射性心血管疾病（CVD）在接受纵隔放射治疗的患者中尤为突出，例如乳腺癌和霍奇金淋巴瘤患者。已经提出了许多放射诱导的 CVD 发病机制的机制，例如内皮炎症激活、内皮过早衰老、增加的 ROS 和线粒体功能障碍。然而，目前的研究似乎指向一个迄今尚未研究过的、潜在的新的表观遗传学在放射诱导的 CVD 发病机制中的作用。首先，表观遗传机制已被牵连到 CVD 的病理生理学中。此外，几项研究表明，电离辐射会引起表观遗传修饰，特别是 DNA 甲基化改变。因此，本综述旨在提供与 DNA 甲基化与放射诱导的 CVD 相关的现有文献的概述，并探讨 DNA 甲基化作为放射诱导的 CVD 发病机制的一个可能因素。
