Homocysteine and Epigenetics

Abstract

Genes are the determinants of all our body’s anatomy, physiology and biochemistry – the normal functioning. They can also determine our responses to some variations to our environment. Epigenetics includes the processes involved in this phenotypic variation of our genotype.

 Methylation is the most common reaction by which phenotypic modification of the genes is brought about under normal circumstances as well as in pathological situations. Thus hypomethylation can be as lethal as (or even more so) than hypermethylation. The universal methyl donor in our body is S-adenosyl methionine (SAM), an intermediary product of homocysteine metabolism by the remethylation cycle. Thus, any change in homocysteine and methionine metabolism will alter the availability of methyl groups and start a chain of hypo/hyper-methylation resulting in pathology.