Ulcerative colitis and epigenetic modification

Huang Yan; Dou Chuan-zi; Liu Hui-rong; Wu Lu-yi; Lu Yuan; Wang Xiao-mei; Hu Hong-yi; Wu Huan-gan

doi:10.3969/j.issn.2095-4344.2015.07.021

Abstract：BACKGROUND:Ulcerative colitis is found to have a complicated occurrence and development process, which is involved in the response of susceptibility genes to the variation of intestinal microbial internal environmental and other external environmental factors that is able to both induce the body’s innate immune and specific immune protection and tolerance, and lead to chronic inflammation. <br> OBJECTIVE:To analyze the progress in the studies about ulcerative colitis and epigenetic modifications in recent 10 years and then to discuss the correlation of susceptibility genes of ulcerative colitis, epigenetic modifications and changes to the occurrence and development of ulcerative colitis. <br> METHODS:PubMed and Wanfang databases were searched for relevant articles published between January 2000 and January 2015 using the keywords of“ulcerative colitis, epigenetic, DNA methylation, histone modification, miRNA”. According to the exclusion criteria, 28 articles were included in result analysis. <br> RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:The occurrence of ulcerative colitis is primarily associated with susceptibility genes, internal and external environmental factors which are affected by epigenetic modification. Epigenetic modifications include DNA methylation, histone modifications, genes silencing mediated by miRNA. Studies about pathogenic factors of ulcerative colitis show that epigenetic modifications and environmental factors may act in the body’s innate immunity and specific immunity, and epigenetic modification plays a very important role in the occurrence and development of ulcerative colitis.