Epigenetic Effects of Natural Products in Inflammatory Diseases: Recent Findings

Inflammation is an essential step for the etiology of multiple diseases. Clinically, due to the limitations of current drugs for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, such as serious side effects and expensive costs, it is urgent to explore novel mechanisms and medicines. Natural products have received extensive attention recently because of their multi-component and multi-target characteristics. Epigenetic modifications are crucial pathophysiological targets for developing innovative therapies for pharmacological interventions. Investigations examining how natural products improving inflammation through epigenetic modifications are emerging. This review state that natural products relieve inflammation via regulating the gene transcription levels through chromosome structure regulated by histone acetylation levels and the addition or deletion of methyl groups on DNA duplex. They could also exert anti-inflammatory effects by modulating the proteins in typical inflammatory signaling pathways by ubiquitin-related degradation and the effect of glycolysis derived free glycosyls. Studies on epigenetic modifications have the potential to facilitate the development of natural products as therapeutic agents. Future research directed at better understanding of how natural products modulate inflammatory processes through less studied epigenetic modifications including neddylation, SUMOylation, palmitoylation and lactylation, may provide new implications. Meanwhile, higher quality preclinical studies and more powerful clinical evidence are still needed to firmly establish the clinical efficacy of the natural products. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01764204; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05845931; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04657926; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02330276.