Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
Immunol Rev. 2022 Oct;311(1):112-129. doi: 10.1111/imr.13079. Epub 2022 Apr 28.
Epigenetics involves the study of various modes of adaptable transcriptional regulation, contributing to cell identity, characteristics, and function. During central nervous system (CNS) infection, epigenetic mechanisms can exert pronounced control over the maturation and antimicrobial properties of nearly every immune cell type. Epigenetics is a relatively new field, with the first mention of these marks proposed only a half-century ago and a substantial body of immunological epigenetic research emerging only in the last few decades. Here, we review the best-characterized epigenetic marks and their functions as well as illustrate how various immune cell populations responding to CNS infection utilize these marks to organize their activation state and inflammatory processes. We also discuss the metabolic and clinical implications of epigenetic marks and the rapidly expanding set of tools available to researchers that are enabling elucidation of increasingly detailed genetic regulatory pathways. These considerations paint an intricate picture of inflammatory regulation, where epigenetic marks influence genetic, signaling, and environmental elements to orchestrate a tailored immunological response to the threat at hand, cementing epigenetics as an important player in immunity.
表观遗传学涉及各种适应性转录调控模式的研究，有助于细胞的身份、特征和功能。在中枢神经系统（CNS）感染过程中，表观遗传机制可以对几乎所有免疫细胞类型的成熟和抗菌特性进行显著控制。表观遗传学是一个相对较新的领域，这些标记的首次提及仅在半个世纪前提出，而大量的免疫学表观遗传研究仅在过去几十年才出现。在这里，我们回顾了最具特征性的表观遗传标记及其功能，并说明了各种对 CNS 感染作出反应的免疫细胞群体如何利用这些标记来组织其激活状态和炎症过程。我们还讨论了表观遗传标记的代谢和临床意义，以及研究人员可用的快速扩展的工具集，这些工具集使人们能够阐明越来越详细的遗传调控途径。这些考虑因素描绘了一幅复杂的炎症调控图景，其中表观遗传标记影响遗传、信号和环境因素，以协调针对当前威胁的量身定制的免疫反应，使表观遗传学成为免疫的重要参与者。
