Progress in histone H3 methylation and heart development / 中国病理生理杂志

Congenital heart disease is one of the main types of birth defect.The mammalian heart developmen-tal progress requires precise gene patterning in time and space.In addition to the gene sequence,recent research showed that the regulation of core cardiac gene expression has been proved to be closely related to cardiac transcription factors as well as the modification of genomic architecture of the histone.Methylation of histone might be the key nodes in the regula-tion of cardiac gene expression and chromatin structure.This review focuses on the role of histone H 3 methylation in heart development process,which may lay a foundation for the prediction of epigenetic modification of congenital heart disease.