Abstract
Atherosclerosis is a disease of large and medium arteries that can lead to life-threatening cerebrovascular and cardiovascular consequences such as heart failure and stroke and is a major contributor to cardiovascular-related mortality worldwide. Atherosclerosis development is a complex process that involves specific structural, functional and transcriptional changes in different vascular cell populations at different stages of the disease. The application of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) analysis has discovered not only disease-related cell-specific transcriptomic profiles but also novel subpopulations of cells once thought as homogenous cell populations. Vascular cells undergo specific transcriptional changes during the entire course of the disease. Epigenetics is the instruction-set-architecture in living cells that defines and maintains the cellular identity by regulating the cellular transcriptome. Although different cells contain the same genetic material, they have different epigenomic signatures. The epigenome is plastic, dynamic and highly responsive to environmental stimuli. Modifications to the epigenome are driven by an array of epigenetic enzymes generally referred to as writers, erasers and readers that define cellular fate and destiny. The reversibility of these modifications raises hope for finding novel therapeutic targets for modifiable pathological conditions including atherosclerosis where the involvement of epigenetics is increasingly appreciated. This article provides a critical review of the up-to-date research in the field of epigenetics mainly focusing on in vivo settings in the context of the cellular role of individual vascular cell types in the development of atherosclerosis.
Highlights
Atherosclerosis is characterized by a pathological build-up of plaque within the arterial vessel walls and is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease [1]
This study demonstrated that histone H3 lysine trimethylation (H3K9me3) plays an important role in vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) inflammation in diabetes
The phenotypic modulation of different vascular cell types during plaque development is a consequence of changes in gene expression
Summary
Atherosclerosis is characterized by a pathological build-up of plaque within the arterial vessel walls and is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease [1]. These studies have identified plasticity and heterogeneity among vascular cells including endothelial, fibroblasts and VSMCs. Massive parallel sequencing at a single cell level has been used in human plaques. The epigenetic control of gene expression is regulated mainly through mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and ncRNAs. The cell-specific transcriptional profile is regulated by the physical shape and organization of DNA into chromatin.
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