The Role of Epigenetics in Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune chronic inflammatory, demyelinating disease, has affected over 2.5 million people in the world, who are mostly in young adulthood ages. As the burden of this disease would highly influence the socioeconomic status of the societies, as well as the patient’s quality of life, any progress in better understanding the pathophysiology of this disease would be valuable. MS is caused by a series of cell- mediated immune mechanisms involving CD4+ T-cell reactivation against CNS. Also, as the involvement of both innate and acquired immunities, different risk factors have been proposed for MS. Environmental factors such as smoking, Epstein-Barr virus infection, sun exposure and vitamin D, body mass index, gut microbiota, and melatonin disturbance may affect gene expression patterns through epigenetic changes, and therefore, play roles in disease occurrence. These epigenetic changes could be categorized as alterations in DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNAs. Moreover, the reversibility of these epigenetic changes could be potentially considered as therapeutic targets. Therefore, several experimental and preclinical studies have investigated medications for reversing the pathologic epigenetic changes in MS. Accordingly, the current review was conducted to gather the current findings on the role of epigenetics in the pathophysiology and also treatment of MS.