Pharmacoepigenetics in Personalized Medicine

Pharmacoepigenetics represents a progressing field of study where researchers are examining how epigenetic alterations such as DNA methylation, microRNAs, and histone acetylation control the gene expression that dictates individual drug responses. Beyond genetic predispositions, these epigenetic modifications are influenced by environmental factors including diet, lifestyle, and toxin exposure, thereby modifying an individual’s medication efficacy and safety. The sophisticated interplay of these factors paves the way for groundbreaking insights into personalized medicine by not only considering the static genetic profiles but also the dynamic epigenetic changes that can evolve with one's environment over time.

This Research Topic aims to delve into how epigenetic modifications regulate gene expression crucial for drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. It seeks to understand the synergy between epigenetic changes and pharmacogenetic variations, including the phenomenon of phenoconversion. The goals include identifying regions of epigenetic variability, isolating crucial epigenetic biomarkers in these regions, and correlating these biomarkers with specific drug response phenotypes, thereby facilitating the prediction and improvement of patient-specific therapeutic outcomes.

We encourage authors to submit article types such as original studies, clinical cases, reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses presenting findings related to epigenetic modifications on pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamic genes influencing therapeutic effect, adverse drug events, or drug-drug interactions. The relationship between epigenetic modifications and pharmacogenetic variants are especially welcome. Welcomed themes are:

• Pharmacoepigenetics/pharmacoepigenomic characterization of Populations

• Phenoconversion for epigenetic modifications

• The complementary role of epigenetic modifications with pharmacogenetic variants in therapeutic response.

• Pharmacoepigenomic predictive models for drugs.

• Bioinformatic modelling of epigenetic factors in pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamic genes

Please note: If patient data are analyzed, a comprehensive description of the patients including sex, age, diagnostic criteria, inclusion and exclusion criteria, disease stage, therapy received, comorbidities as well as additional clinical information and assessment of clinical response/effects should be included. If genetic, proteomics, metabolomics, or other omics data are analyzed, a comprehensive description of the methods and the rationale for selecting the specific data studied should be provided. Studies related to natural compounds, herbal extracts, or traditional medicine products, are outside the scope of this Research Topic and should instead be submitted to the specialty section of Ethnopharmacology. Studies solely based on the analysis of public databases or published evidence, with no further experimental insights or insufficient experimental validation, will not be included in this Research Topic.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: pharmacoepigenomics, epigenetics, epigenomics, personalized Medicine, pharmacoepigenetics

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.