Past, Present and Future of Nutrigenomics and its Influence on Drug Development

Kenneth      Lundstrom

doi:10.2174/1570163811310010006

Abstract

The importance of nutrition in disease prevention and treatment has gained much attention with the emergence of next generation sequence technologies allowing full-genome sequencing at reduced cost in weeks rather than months. The vast genetic information needs to be efficiently channeled into a useful format to provide applicability for improved health and treatment of disease. Recently, it also led to the birth of nutrigenomics, which facilitates the investigation of the effects of nutrition on gene expression and beyond. At present, a number of studies have showed the effect of nutrition on gene expression in health and disease. For instance, weight loss and as importantly weight keeping has been demonstrated to be efficiently achieved in obesity treatment through personalized diet planning. Likewise, intensive dietary interventions have showed a significant effect on the expression pattern on cancer-related genes in prostate cancer patients. Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation, histone modifications, and microRNA-based gene silencing are strongly affected by nutritional intake. Better understanding of the human genome will further accelerate nutrigenomics applications and the development of nutritional modifications including personalized nutrition for our well-being and will also present a strong influence on future drug discovery.

Keywords: Dietary intervention, epigenetics, gene silencing, micro-RNA, nutrigenomics, personalized medicine, prevention, dietary therapy