Genome-wide analysis of epigenomic alterations in pancreatic islets from mice under the risk of developing glucose intolerance

遗传和环境因素在糖尿病的病因学中都扮演着重要的角色，尽管疾病背后的分子机制在很大程度上仍不清楚。如今，基因表达的表观遗传调控引起了人们对糖尿病研究领域的关注。表观遗传调控是由于染色体的变化，而不是DNA序列的变化。这项研究的目的是通过全基因组分析来阐明表观遗传机制在调节胰岛β细胞功能和葡萄糖代谢中的作用。通过测试小鼠模型，如饮食诱导的肥胖小鼠和自发性糖尿病小鼠，我们发现顺式调控区域在表观基因组中显示出变化，这是该模型的特征。此外，这些效应与重叠或相邻基因表达的变化有关。综上所述，这些结果表明表观基因组的全基因组研究对于阐明疾病机制和确定新药靶点具有重要意义。

Both genetic and environmental factors play important roles in the aetiology of diabetes, although the molecular mechanisms underlying the disease remain largely unclear. These days, epigenetic regulation of gene expression, which results from changes in a chromosome without alterations in the DNA sequence, has drawn attention to the field of diabetes research. The aim of this study was to clarify the involvement of epigenetic mechanisms in the regulation of pancreatic beta-cell function and glucose metabolism by genome-wide analyses. By testing mouse models, such as diet-induced obese mice and spontaneously diabetic mice, we found the cis-regulatory regions exhibited changes in the epigenome that were characteristic for the model. Furthermore, these effects were associated with changes in the expression of overlapping or adjacent genes. In summary, these results suggest the importance of genome-wide study of epigenome for clarifying disease mechanisms and identifying new drug targets.