Samenvatting

Diabetes remains a major risk for atherosclerotic-cardiovascular disease (CVD). While many mechanisms have been explored, the full extent of how diabetes promotes CVD remains unknown. An emerging area in diabetes is the influence of epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Diabetes has been shown to deactivate an important enzyme known as TET2 in hematopoietic stem cells (HSPCs), which is responsible for stabilizing gene expression through promoting 5‐cytosine hydroxymethylation (5-hmC). Our group has recently found in unpublished data that diabetes suppresses TET2 activity via the reduction of AMPK phosphorylation, subsequently decreasing 5-hmC in HSPCs in the bone marrow.