Factors Influencing Epigenetic Mechanisms: Is There A Role for Bariatric Surgery?

Abstract

Epigenetics is the interaction between the genome and environmental stimuli capable of influencing gene expression during development and aging. A large number of studies have shown that metabolic diseases are highly associated with epigenetic alterations, suggesting that epigenetic factors may play a central role in obesity. To investigate these relationships, we focus our attention on the most common epigenetic modifications that occur in obesity, including DNA methylation and post-translational modifications of histones. We also consider bariatric surgery as an epigenetic factor, evaluating how the anatomic and physiologic modifications induced by these surgical techniques can change gene expression. Here we discuss the importance of epigenetic mechanisms in chronic disease and cancer, and the role of epigenetic disturbances in obesity, with a focus on the role of bariatric surgery.

Maternal Exercise Mediates Hepatic Metabolic Programming via Activation of AMPK-PGC1α Axis in the Offspring of Obese Mothers

“…Maternal exercise in obese dams prevented the offspring from PGC1α hypermethylation in the muscle of exercised dams compared to offspring of sedentary dams with concurrent amelioration of systemic glucose metabolism, indicating toward a strong epigenetic effect of exercise on offspring RNA transcriptional regulation [ 71 ]. As epigenetics is described as the interaction between the genome and environmental stimuli, it seems possible that physical activity represents such an inducible stimulus, mediating alterations in an individual’s epigenetic profile [ 72 ]. In line with this, the altered gene expression of key regulators of lipid metabolism observed in the underlying study could, thus, have been induced as a result of exercise-mediated epigenetic mechanisms.…”

S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methyltransferase inhibitor DZNep blocks transcription and translation of SARS-CoV-2 genome with a low tendency to select for drug-resistant viral variants

“…The effectiveness of the epigenetic machinery may depend on the environment ( Karagiannis and Maulik, 2012 ; Metere and Graves, 2020 ), microbiota ( Sharma et al, 2019 ), nutrition ( Greco et al, 2019 ) and comorbidities ( Jakovljevic and Borovecki, 2018 ), implying that a given viral RNA genome may perform differently in different individuals. In this context, our study which highlights the impact of an epitranscriptomic layer of regulation on the life cycle of SARS-CoV-2 is likely to contribute in understanding the pathogenicity, transmission and disease severity in the COVID-19 patients.…”

Evaluation of Clinical Factors Predictive of Diabetes Remission Following Bariatric Surgery

“…Recently, another important benefit of sleeve gastrectomy has been reported, i.e., a post-surgery normalization of free radicals, with values decreased to levels comparable to those of control individuals [ 18 ]. Furthermore, some authors consider bariatric surgery as an epigenetic factor influencing the anatomic and physiologic modifications induced in gene expression by these surgical techniques [ 19 ].…”