Skip to main content
Figure 5 | Scoliosis

Figure 5

From: Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), environment, exposome and epigenetics: a molecular perspective of postnatal normal spinal growth and the etiopathogenesis of AIS with consideration of a network approach and possible implications for medical therapy

Figure 5

Putative genetic and epigenetic approach to causal factors affecting vertebral growth plates (GPs) in health and AIS pathogenesis (CNS = central nervous system). Moving from left-to-right in columns: 1) Exposome (yellow ); 2) external environment (epigenetic, orange), internal environment (epigenetic, blue) and genetic (green); 3) factors controlling normal vertebral growth, genetic (green), internal environment (blue) and external environment (orange) containing the physiologic growth-plate exposome; these factors are considered to cause epigenetic changes (follow vertical arrows) in normal structures and contribute to the epigenome of vertebral growth plate cells; 4) etiopathogenetic hypotheses for AIS containing the pathophysiologic scoliogenic exposome (pink) and genetic susceptibility (pink); 5) the resulting AIS deformity (red); 6) the long vertical red arrow to the right represents craniocaudal pathophysiologic components affecting the trunk over time leading to the AIS deformity. (Adapted to normal spinal growth and AIS pathogenesis from the multihit pathogenetic model for inflammatory bowel disease of Maloy and Powrie [47] and the genetic/epigenetic model for common human diseases of Bjornsson et al [14]).

Back to article page

Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders

ISSN: 2397-1789

Contact us