Abstract
Atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases, in which atherosclerosis (AS) is the main pathologic basis, are currently the primary diseases leading to human deaths. Emerging evidence showed that DNA methylation, which could affect the transcription and expression of critical regulatory genes, has key roles in AS. Aberrant DNA methylation including aberrant hypomethylation and hypermethylation plays key roles in endothelial-cell dysfunction, macrophage inflammation, abnormal proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells, plaque rupture, and thrombosis in AS. Chinese herbal medicines, including single compounds and formulations, showed light on the treatment of AS through regulating the aberrant DNA methylation in AS. Targeting the aberrant DNA methylation may be one of the most important treatment strategies in the cure and prevention of AS. In this review, we focus on the relationship between DNA methylation and AS, as well as the beneficial effects of Chinese herbal medicines on DNA methylation in AS.
Highlights
Atherosclerosis (AS) includes coronary heart disease and stroke, which are the leading causes of death worldwide [1].e pathologic mechanism of AS mainly involves injury to the vascular intima caused by dyslipidemia; foam cell (FC) formation; proliferation of vascular smooth muscle caused by inflammatory mediators and plaque rupture [2,3,4]
Ma et al found that resveratrol inhibited smooth muscle cell proliferation by inhibiting homocysteine-induced PTEN hypermethylation, and the related mechanism was related to DNMT1 low expression [49] (Table 1)
Huang found that Yangxin Tongmai Formula affected methylation of zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 2 (ZEB2) in coronary heart disease with blood stasis syndrome [61] (Table 3). e effects of Zhizi Chuanxiong capsule and Soufeng Qutan Fang on DNA methylation have been found to be bidirectional, which suggests that Chinese herbal medicines (HMs) could recover the balance of abnormal hypermethylation and hypomethylation of DNA in AS (Tables 2 and 3)
Summary
Atherosclerosis (AS) includes coronary heart disease and stroke, which are the leading causes of death worldwide [1]. Us, it is thought that DNA methylation is strongly associated with the occurrence and development of AS. Emerging studies have shown that abnormal methylation of DNA plays a very important part in the inflammatory response, endothelial injury, FC formation, and smooth muscle cell (SMC) proliferation [8,9,10]. Targeting such aberrant methylation of DNA in AS is an important strategy for the prevention and treatment of AS and has attracted the attention of many researchers. We discuss the regulatory effects of HM on DNA methylation in AS treatment
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