Epigenetics of obesity

Among different mechanisms that could lead to inter-individual differences in obesity susceptibility, epigenetics has emerged, in the last years, as a potentially very important contributor. The role of epigenetics in obesity may be considered by different points of view. Several nutritional factors are, in fact, known to influence epigenetic phenomena including DNA methylation, histone modifications, non-coding RNA expression and chromatin remodeling mechanisms, all of which significantly influence transcriptional regulatory pathways and phenotypic plasticity. Moreover, there are genes affecting metabolic processes related to weight control and obesity development whose expression is controlled by epigenetic mechanisms. A number of evidences suggests that epigenetic phenomena may be important in obesity development due to the dysregulation of known imprinted genes which have an essential role in normal growth and development and by modulating gene expression regulation through promoter DNA methylation at specific loci and histone modifications involved in obesity-linked metabolic pathways. Early life exposure to environmental/nutritional factors affecting epigenetics is also involved in obesity development. While some evidences are quite solid in this field, much is to be learned for the better understanding of epigenetic regulation in obesity and even more in terms of therapeutic prospectives. One of the objectives for the research in this novel area relies on the ability of defining epigenetic regulatory processes in genes involved in obesity and in a deeper knowledge on how epigenetic phenomena may be modulated by nutritional/environmental factors. Indeed, one of the main challenges is defining the epigenetic marks involved in obesity development and more specifically, to identify those which are potentially more susceptible to be modified by nutritional/environmental factors for specific preventive and therapeutic approaches