Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/2445/172494
Title: ALUminating the Path of Atherosclerosis Progression: Chaos Theory Suggests a Role for Alu Repeats in the Development of Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease
Author: Hueso Val, Miguel
Cruzado, Josep Ma.
Torras Ambròs, Joan
Navarro, Estanis
Keywords: Malalties cardiovasculars
Malalties coronàries
Cardiovascular diseases
Coronary diseases
Issue Date: Jun-2018
Publisher: MDPI
Abstract: Atherosclerosis (ATH) and coronary artery disease (CAD) are chronic inflammatory diseases with an important genetic background; they derive from the cumulative effect of multiple common risk alleles, most of which are located in genomic noncoding regions. These complex diseases behave as nonlinear dynamical systems that show a high dependence on their initial conditions; thus, long-term predictions of disease progression are unreliable. One likely possibility is that the nonlinear nature of ATH could be dependent on nonlinear correlations in the structure of the human genome. In this review, we show how chaos theory analysis has highlighted genomic regions that have shared specific structural constraints, which could have a role in ATH progression. These regions were shown to be enriched with repetitive sequences of the Alu family, genomic parasites that have colonized the human genome, which show a particular secondary structure and are involved in the regulation of gene expression. Here, we show the impact of Alu elements on the mechanisms that regulate gene expression, especially highlighting the molecular mechanisms via which the Alu elements alter the inflammatory response. We devote special attention to their relationship with the long noncoding RNA (lncRNA); antisense noncoding RNA in the INK4 locus (ANRIL), a risk factor for ATH; their role as microRNA (miRNA) sponges; and their ability to interfere with the regulatory circuitry of the (nuclear factor kappa B) NF-κB response. We aim to characterize ATH as a nonlinear dynamic system, in which small initial alterations in the expression of a number of repetitive elements are somehow amplified to reach phenotypic significance.
Note: Reproducció del document publicat a: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19061734
It is part of: International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2018, vol. 19, num. 6, p. E1734
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2445/172494
Related resource: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19061734
ISSN: 1661-6596
Appears in Collections:Articles publicats en revistes (Ciències Clíniques)
Articles publicats en revistes (Institut d'lnvestigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge (IDIBELL))

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