TITLE:
Regulatory Mechanisms of Histone Modifications in Myocardial Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury: A Narrow Review
AUTHORS:
Jianghui Zhou, Wenqing Gao
KEYWORDS:
Myocardial Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury, Histone Modification, Epigenetics, Transcriptional Regulation
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biosciences and Medicines,
Vol.14 No.5,
May
29,
2026
ABSTRACT: Myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury (MIRI) remains a critical bottleneck limiting the clinical efficacy of treatments for ischemic heart disease. Its pathological progression involves oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, and multiple forms of regulated cell death. Conventional single-target therapeutic strategies generally show limited success in clinical translation, making the identification of novel therapeutic targets an urgent need in this field. As a core mechanism of epigenetic regulation, histone modification can translate ischemia-reperfusion-induced stress signals into transcriptional reprogramming at the chromatin level, thereby serving as a key epigenetic driver of the occurrence and progression of MIRI. This review systematically describes the biological basis and core regulatory framework of histone modifications, with a particular focus on the pathological regulatory mechanisms of acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation, and other emerging acylation modifications in MIRI. It further analyzes the crosstalk network among different histone modifications and summarizes current intervention strategies and research progress targeting histone modifications in MIRI, aiming to provide a systematic theoretical reference for studies on the epigenetic mechanisms and clinical translation of MIRI.