Epigenetic Biomarkers in Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death worldwide and greatly impact quality of life and medical costs. Enormous effort has been made in research to obtain new tools for efficient and quick diagnosis and predicting the prognosis of these diseases. Discoveries of epigenetic mechanisms have related several pathologies, including cardiovascular diseases, to epigenetic dysregulation. This has implications on disease progression and is the basis for new preventive strategies. Advances in methodology and big data analysis have identified novel mechanisms and targets involved in numerous diseases, allowing more individualized epigenetic maps for personalized diagnosis and treatment. This paves the way for what is called pharmacoepigenetics, which predicts the drug response and develops a tailored therapy based on differences in the epigenetic basis of each patient. Similarly, epigenetic biomarkers have emerged as a promising instrument for the consistent diagnosis and prognosis of cardiovascular diseases. Their good accessibility and feasible methods of detection make them suitable for use in clinical practice. However, multicenter studies with a large sample population are required to determine with certainty which epigenetic biomarkers are reliable for clinical routine. Therefore, this review focuses on current discoveries regarding epigenetic biomarkers and its controversy aiming to improve the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy in cardiovascular patients.

Use of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVEC) as a Model to Study Cardiovascular Disease: A Review

“…It is also useful to study the effects of novel drugs on human endothelium [74]. Moreover, a recent innovation in gene editing provides the opportunity to study the effects of specific mutations in EC [1,34]. Most importantly, the HUVEC model has been useful to study a broad array of biological processes and diseases, such as inflammation, apoptosis, preeclampsia, cancer, CVD and regenerative medicine [12,13,49,58].…”

“…CVD are the leading cause of death in the world. These diseases affect the structure and/or function of the heart and blood vessels, and include highly prevalent disorders such as hypertension, atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction, among others [1,4,109,110]. Several metabolic risk factors involved in the development of CVD, such as hypercholesterolemia and diabetes promote EC dysfunction [4,109,111]…”

“…Hypertension is a chronic and multifactorial disease [1]. In recent years, its incidence has increased, and onset occurs at earlier ages.…”

“…Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is highly prevalent in the adult population and the leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally [1]. While CVD has a complex etiology, atherosclerosis is considered the primary pathological mechanism associated with this disease.…”

“…WJ seems to perform the function of the adventitia, which is absent from cord vessels, unifying and enclosing such vessels [20]. In situ histological cross-sections stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) have revealed that the architecture of the internal WJ tissue comprises four different cell populations in found defined zones: (1) The amnion (AM) located in the peripheral region, is a layer of cells that covers the umbilical cord; (2) the subamnion (SA) situated in the outermost mucous tissue, directly below the AM cells; (3) the perivascular areas (PV) surrounding umbilical blood vessels; and (4) the stem cells of the WJ (WH) located below the SA zone and between the PV and AM region ( Figure 1B). The intervascular WJ region occupies the most significant area and volume of the umbilical cord [21][22][23][24].…”