Review Article Histone Deacetylase Inhibition and Dietary Short-Chain Fatty Acids

Copyright © 2011 Paul V. Licciardi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Changes in diet can also have dramatic effects on the composition of gut microbiota. Commensal bacteria of the gastrointestinal tract are critical regulators of health and disease by protecting against pathogen encounter whilst also maintaining immune tolerance to certain allergens. Moreover, consumption of fibre and vegetables typical of a non-Western diet generates substantial quantities of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) which have potent anti-inflammatory properties. Dietary interventions such as probiotic supplementation have been investigated for their pleiotropic effects on microbiota composition and immune function. Probiotics may restore intestinal dysbiosis and improve clinical disease through elevated SCFA levels in the intestine. Although the precise mechanisms by which such dietary factors mediate these effects, SCFAmetabolites such as butyrate also function as histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi), that can act on the epigenome through chromatin remodeling changes. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of HDAC enzymes and to discuss the biological effects of HDACi. Further, we discuss the importan