Emerging Trends in Advanced Genomic Medicine to Elucidate the Molecular Basis of the Cardiovascular System: From Development to Disease

A research for elucidation of molecular mechanisms underlying pathogenesis of various diseases has dramatically progressed since human genome, a fundamental blueprint for biological activity, was decoded. For example, Genome-wide association study (GWAS) that correlates genotype variations with phenotype differences among individuals was conducted in large populations, leading to better understanding of genetic variations through identification of disease-sensitive genes and contributing to the development of personalized genomic medicine. Evidence has emerged that human genomes also include sequences, which do not encode proteins but are transcribed to untranslated RNA such as microRNA (miRNA) and long non-coding RNA (lincRNA). Such non-coding RNAs have been extensively studied and found to be involved in the onset of various diseases. In addition to genome sequence as information for biological activity, our understanding of biological phenomena and mechanisms underlying the development of diseases has been further and more systematically advanced by studies on epigenetic transcriptional regulation, such as DNA methylation and histone modification, and protein synthesis as well as posttranslational modification, and omics study (such as a comprehensive analysis of the regulation of metabolite). More recently, it has been reported that genome products of human flora, so called microbiome, possessing genes a hundred time more than human genome are linked to various types of biological phenomena and that the components have never been same even in the case of identical twins. The relation between genetic diversity in microbiome and the development of various types of disease including cardiovascular disease has been clarified. In this symposium, taking such rapid progress in genomic medicine into consideration, we would much expect having a broard range of research achievements that would become a milestone to overcome cardiovascular disease from development of the cardiovascular system to clarification of mechanisms of disease.