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Fig. 1 | Military Medical Research

Fig. 1

From: Smoking under hypoxic conditions: a potent environmental risk factor for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases

Fig. 1

Epigenetic modifications induced by cigarette smoke. a Acetylation: via a decrease in HDAC2 activity and NF-κB activation, cigarette smoke induces an increase in histone-4 acetylation and hence up-regulation of inflammatory gene expression. b DNA methylation: in mammals, the cytosine in CpG motifs (not shown in the figure) can be reversibly methylated at the 5′ position by DNMT; CSC and ROS/RNS produced in cigarette smoke reduce DNMT-1 expression/activity, inhibiting DNA methylation and hence enhancing expression of methylation-regulated inflammatory genes, which leads to inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. CSCs. cigarette smoke constituents; DNMT. DNA methyl transferase; HDAC2. histone deacetylase-2; NF-κB. nuclear factor-kappa B; ROSs. reactive oxygen species; RNS. reactive nitrogen species

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