Chunk #13 — Introduction — 1. Epigenetic Regulation due to Histone Covalent Modifications — 1A. Role of Histone Acetylation and Deacetylation in Transcriptional Regulation
circadian pathways, could be an important avenue for therapeutic intervention. Recently, the sirtuin isoform SIRT1 has been shown to modulate CREB function and affect learning and memory pathways via its regulation of microRNA-134 (Gao et al., 2010). This serves to illustrate the complexity of HDAC inhibition and warrant a greater understanding of specific HDAC isoform function. In recent years, inhibition of HDACs has been a promising new avenue for a variety of human brain disorders (Kazantsev & Thompson, 2008). The HDAC inhibitor SAHA (marketed as Vorinostat) has been approved for treatment of cancers (Richon, 2006). Let us now briefly review the histone acetylation and deacetylation mechanisms that play a role in ethanol-mediated phenotypes in both central and peripheral tissues. We will then briefly review these pathways in the context of other drugs of abuse in order to understand the shared epigenetic pathways that lead to addiction.
