Epigenetics of Cardiovascular Disease - A New "Beat" in Coronary Artery Disease.

ABSTRACT: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become a powerful tool in the identification of disease-associated variants. Unfortunately, many of these studies have found that the estimated variability in cardiovascular disease risk cannot be fully explained by traditional paradigms of genetic variation in protein coding genes. Moreover, traditional views do not sufficiently explain the well-known link between cardiovascular disease and environmental influence. We posit that epigenetics, defined as chromatin-based mechanisms important in the regulation of gene expression that do not involve changes in the DNA sequence per se, represents the missing link. The nuclear-based mechanisms that contribute to epigenetic gene regulation can be broadly separated into three unique but highly int

SUBMITTER: Turgeon PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4232955 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature