Keywords
Epigenetic; Human adult stem cells; Gap junctional intercellular communication; Barker hypothesis
Abstract
With the current emphasis on delivering accurate diagnosis, prognosis and treatments to prevent and treat human diseases, it is critical that one understands the mechanistic bases for the pathogenesis of both acute and chronic diseases. Although “Environmental Medicine” involves the whole spectrum of clinical disciplines from obstetrics, pediatrics to geriatrics and involves the potential roles of genetics in the onset of any diseases that to be associated with some environmental factor(s), the roles of “epigenetic” toxicological mechanisms seems to be largely ignored in “personalized medicine”, or “precision medicine” where the use of genetic information has played a major role in certain aspects of personalized medicine. With the recent development of sophisticated molecular technologies, various current paradigms, some having origins in past insights to the origin of “genetic or heredity diseases” or in the discovery of environmental agents (radiation, toxic chemicals or pathogenic biological organisms), there has been some confusions of how these agents contribute to these diseases.
A short “Commentary” is proposed to assist in sorting out these various factors contributing to “genetic” and “environmental” causes of these diseases. In brief, it will be assumed that the singular concept that genes or environmental factors, alone, are not “the” cause of any disease, but that complex interactions are needed to affect disease pathogeneses. This will involve our current understanding that mutations (gene or chromosomal), cell death and alterations of gene expression at the transcriptional, translational and posttranslational levels (epigenetic change) are involved in the toxicological mechanisms of the pathogenesis of birth defects, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory diseases, reproductive- and neurological-disorders. Much of our global disease burden is the result of a collision of glacial-speed biological evolution of genes needed for survival and reproduction with the laser speed cultural evolution. Lastly, with the recent discovery of organ-specific adult stem cells, alteration of the numbers (increase or decrease) of these organ-specific stem cells could provide the mechanistic basis for the risk of various stem-cell related diseases later in life (The Barker hypothesis)
Citation
Trosko JE. Commentary: Environmental Medicine: The Role of Epigenetic Mechanisms. SM J Pediatr. 2017; 2(2): 1011.