Chronic arsenic exposure and DNA methylation: current progress / 中华地方病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Arsenic is a kind of non-metallic substance with carcinogenic effect, which widely exists in the natural environment. Chronic arsenic exposure will cause a series of health damage involving multiple organs of the whole body. Because of its unclear pathogenesis, lack of specific drugs and early biomarkers, it has become the focus and hotspot of scientific and technological workers for a long time. Epigenetic modification not only correlates with arsenic exposure, but also participates in early arsenic-induced damage by regulating the expression of key molecules, which has become an important research direction of arsenic exposure mechanism. As one of the important modes of epigenetic modification, DNA methylation is expected to provide a new therapeutic target for endemic arsenism. However, how DNA methylation regulates the expression of key genes induced by arsenic and participates in the occurrence and development of arsenism and its relationship with the mechanism of arsenism need to be further studied. The research progress of DNA methylation in the pathogenesis of arsenism is reviewed.