Focusing on the regulation of epigenetic modification on retinal vascular disease / 中华眼底病杂志

ABSTRACT

Epigenetics has been very hot in the research of biomedicine. In addition to genetic factors, the occurrence of a disease is also influenced by environmental factors. Retinal vascular diseases are a type of irreversible blind eye disease, such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. The retinal vessel changes are the major features of retinal vascular diseases, which are the result of interaction of multiple environmental factors and genes. Epigenetic modification mainly includes DNA methylation, histone modification, and non-coding RNA regulation. Epigenetic mechanisms mediate the effects of environmental factors on genes related to retinal vascular diseases, and affect the eventual development of the diseases. Therefore, ophthalmologists should keep eyes close on the role of epigenetics in retinal vascular diseases, track the progress of epigenetic methods in the treatment of retinal vascular diseases, and pay attention to the application prospects of epigenetics. Finding the epigenetic regulators of these diseases can not only deepen the understanding of the pathological mechanism of these diseases, but also provide new ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.