Impact of epigenetics in the management of cardiovascular disease: a review

Epigenetics is the new study of all the heritable changes which have a tremendous potential to introduce new biomarkers in the Cardiovascular disease (CVD) field and also new avenues for innovative research therapies.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading diseases and is responsible for one-third of all deaths worldwide and accounting for an important burden of healthcare expenditure.

Epigenetic mechanisms represent a stable cellular memory that allows the propagation of gene activities from one generation of cells to the next generation.

There are several pathological conditions which affect the heart including Cardiac hypertrophy, Coronary artery disease, hypertension etc. which leads to the failure of the heart.

Already, epigenetic modifications were reported to play an urgent part in process underlying CVD, counting atherosclerosis, irritation, and hypertension. To date, most of the restrictions for the complete understanding of the hereditary impact on cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are likely due to the inactive basic assessment of the DNA code.

In epigenetics, through the study of a few energetic pathways, alter moreover the genome’s functionality under exogenous impact, which may recognize novel mechanisms and targets within the control of gene regulation, with noteworthy acquisitions in CVD information of its hereditary risk and pathophysiology. In fact, epigenetic alterations such as histones alterations, DNA methylation, and little noncoding RNAs occur in response to natural changes. Pollution and diet will significantly alter these epigenetic alterations and trigger susceptibility to CVD

There are several potential benefits of using the epigenetic biomarkers such DNA methylation of specific genes or miRNAs. As compared to the classical biochemical biomarkers present ones can give valuable data about gene functions and phenotypes which would be helpful for CVD diagnosis, outcome, prognosis, treatment monitoring and stratification.

Gene editing for cancer prevention may actually cause cancer

Gene editing or genome editing is a method which allows changing in an organism’s DNA sequence and is done to understand diseases using cells and animal models. This technology helps them to add, remove and to alter a particular location in the human genome. Several approaches to genome editing have been developed and still, scientists are working to determine whether gene editing is safe and effective for use in people and It is being explored on a wide variety of diseases which includes single-gene disorders and prevention of complex diseases like Cancer. A recent technology, known as CRISPR-Cas9, which is short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9. The CRISPR-Cas9 system has generated a lot of enthusiasm in the scientific community because it is faster, cheaper, more accurate, and more efficient than other existing genome editing methods.

CRISPR is a bacterial cell which contains fragments of DNA from viruses which have attacked them previously. These fragments are collected from the invading viruses and are used to create DNA segments known as CRISPR arrays which allow the bacteria to remember the viruses, so that when it will infect again then bacteria will produce RNA segments from the CRISPR arrays to target the virus and kills them.

The same technology i.e. CRISPR-Cas9 works similarly in the laboratory. Researcher creates a small piece of RNA with a short “guide” that binds to the target DNA and RNA binds to the Cas9 enzyme. Likewise, the modified RNA is used to recognize the infected DNA sequence and Cas9 cuts that DNA. Once it is cut, researchers use the cell’s own repair machinery to add or delete pieces of genetic material.

Ethical concern emerges when these technologies alter human genes. The change which affects certain tissues is not passed to the next generation. However, the changes made to genes in egg or sperm cells or in the genes of an embryo could be passed to future generations. Germ-line cell and embryo gene editing bring up a number of ethical issues, including whether it would be acceptable to use this technology to enhance normal human traits including height or intelligence. Based on the concerns about ethics and safety, germline cell and embryo genome editing are currently illegal in many countries.