Integrating Epigenomics into the Understanding of Biomedical Insight.

Author:

Han, Yixing

He, Ximiao
Author Address

Mouse Cancer Genetics Program, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Frederick, MD, USA.; Present address: Genetics and Biochemistry Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA., Laboratory of Metabolism, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.; Present address: Department of Medical Genetics, School of Basic Medicine, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.,

Abstract:

Epigenetics is one of the most rapidly expanding fields in biomedical research, and the popularity of the high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) highlights the accelerating speed of epigenomics discovery over the past decade. Epigenetics studies the heritable phenotypes resulting from chromatin changes but without alteration on DNA sequence. Epigenetic factors and their interactive network regulate almost all of the fundamental biological procedures, and incorrect epigenetic information may lead to complex diseases. A comprehensive understanding of epigenetic mechanisms, their interactions, and alterations in health and diseases genome widely has become a priority in biological research. Bioinformatics is expected to make a remarkable contribution for this purpose, especially in processing and interpreting the large-scale NGS datasets. In this review, we introduce the epigenetics pioneering achievements in health status and complex diseases; next, we give a systematic review of the epigenomics data generation, summarize public resources and integrative analysis approaches, and finally outline the challenges and future directions in computational epigenomics.

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