Epigenetic Landscape of Periodontal Diseases

Review Article

Abstract

Epigenetic changes are heritable changes that do not depend on changes in DNA sequence. Epigenetic mechanisms are essential for regulation of transcription and provide a dynamic, reversible, and mechanistic framework that could explain the way in which environmental and behavioural factors interact with the genome to alter disease risk. Epigenetic factors play an important role in chronic inflammatory conditions by allowing microbial persistence to play a role in the infectious mechanism, resulting in pathogen interference with the host genome. Thus, periodontal pathogens containing lipopoly-saccharides can be a cause of epigenetic modifications affecting expression of inflammatory mediators in periodontal tissue, and low-grade chronic inflammation present in periodontal disease has been shown to promote DNA methylation. Periodontal disease is closely linked with diabetes mellitus complications, which are related to epigenetic changes.