Chromatin landscape and epigenetic biomarkers for clinical diagnosis and prognosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus

Type 2 diabetes and its accompanying complications constitute a major health burden worldwide, which can be partly attributed to the interplay between genetics and environments. Extensive research over the last decades has shown that our genome is not the only determinant of disease risk. Epigenetic marks induced by lifestyle and environmental factors are associated with altered gene expression patterns in important tissues, leading to altered susceptibility to disease later in life. Hence, the identification of epigenetic biomarkers unfolds the possibility for a novel personalized disease prevention strategy and at the same time holds the potential to be a promising prognostic tool for diabetes. So far, evidence on the predictive value of epigenetics in diabetes management is very limited. Unlike in cancer pathology, where examples of important epigenetic tools are now widely used in clinical practice as predictive/diagnostic biomarkers, for complex pathophysiological diseases such as diabetes, this still remains a challenge. These topics are discussed extensively in this chapter.