Epigenetic therapies for non-oncology indications

Chronic and degenerative disorders are a major, and growing, human health burden, and current treatments are in many cases inadequate or very expensive. Epigenetic therapies are attractive options for treating such disorders because they manipulate the processes that maintain cells in an abnormal transcriptional state. The challenges lie in identifying the most appropriate diseases and the enzymes that should be targeted. This review describes the different approaches that can be used to address this problem, focusing particularly on CNS disorders (especially mental retardation, neurodegenerative disease, psychiatric disorders and drug addiction), diabetes and diabetic complications, and autoimmunity and inflammatory diseases.