Epigenetics, Microbiome and Personalized Medicine: Focus on Kidney Disease

Abstract

Personalized medicine, which involves modifying treatment strategies/drug dosages based on massive laboratory/imaging data, faces large statistical and study design problems. The authors believe that the use of continuous multidimensional data, such as those regarding gut microbiota, or binary multidimensional systems properly transformed into a continuous variable, such as the epigenetic clock, offer an advantageous scenario for the design of trials of personalized medicine. We will discuss examples focusing on kidney diseases, specifically on IgA nephropathy. While gut dysbiosis can provide a treatment strategy to restore the standard gut microbiota using probiotics, transforming epigenetic omics data into epigenetic clocks offers a promising tool for personalized acute and chronic kidney disease care. Epigenetic clocks involve a complex transformation of DNA methylome data into estimated biological age. These clocks can identify people at high risk of developing kidney problems even before symptoms appear. Some of the effects of both the epigenetic clock and microbiota on kidney diseases seem to be mediated by endothelial dysfunction. These “big data” (epigenetic clocks and microbiota) can help tailor treatment plans by pinpointing patients likely to experience rapid declines or those who might not need overly aggressive therapies.