The critical importance of epigenetics in autoimmune-related skin diseases

Abstract

Autoimmune-related skin diseases are a group of disorders with diverse etiology and pathophysiology involved in autoimmunity. Genetics and environmental factors may contribute to the development of these autoimmune disorders. Although the etiology and pathogenesis of these disorders are poorly understood, environmental variables that induce aberrant epigenetic regulations may provide some insights. Epigenetics is the study of heritable mechanisms that regulate gene expression without changing DNA sequences. The most important epigenetic mechanisms are DNA methylation, histone modification, and noncoding RNAs. In this review, we discuss the most recent findings regarding the function of epigenetic mechanisms in autoimmune-related skin disorders, including systemic lupus erythematosus, bullous skin diseases, psoriasis, and systemic sclerosis. These findings will expand our understanding and highlight the possible clinical applications of precision epigenetics approaches.

Keywords

epigenetics / autoimmune-related skin diseases / DNA methylation / histone modifications / noncoding RNAs

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS) (No. 2021-I2M-1-059), the Non-profit Central Research Institute Fund of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (No. 2020-RC320-003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81830097) and Special Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32141004).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Lingyu Gao and Qianjin Lu declared no potential conflicts of interest for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This manuscript is a review article and does not involve a research protocol requiring approval by the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee.

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