[Epigenetic mechanism of cardiac differentiation of stem cells]

Abstract

Epigenetics is a new branch of genetics which studies reversible and heritable changes of gene function that do not involve alterations in DNA sequence of nucleus. The epigenetic mechanism includes DNA methylation, post-translational histone modification, chromatin remodeling, microRNA regulation and so on. Some investigations have shown that epigenetic phenomena changes occur in the cardiac differentiation of stem cells. Drugs causing epigenetic modifications have been shown to induce the cardiac differentiation of stem cells. Epigenetics becomes a hot subject of research on the cardiac differentiation mechanism of stem cells providing new theories and Methods for stem cell application in developmental biology, genetics and regenerative medicine.