Abstract

Photoaging is a kind of skin damage induced by long-term exposure to ultraviolet radiation characterized by skin roughness, thickening, relaxation and wrinkles, local pigmentation or telangiectasia, and even tumorigenesis. Admittedly, the mechanisms of photoaging are varied and complicated mainly involving dermal extracellular matrix degradation, cell senescence and epidermal hyperplasia due to a combination of oxidative stress, inflammatory response and epigenetic modification. Epigenetic modifications study reversible and heritable changes in gene function in the absence of nuclear DNA sequence variation. Classic epigenetic events include methylation or hydroxy methylation of DNA dinucleotides, post-translational modifications of amino termini of histone proteins, and non-coding RNA expression. In this review, we introduced the pathological manifestation of skin aging and summarized the possible pathogenesis of photoaging comprehensively. In addition, we focused on the mechanisms of epigenetic contributors to skin aging impacted by UVA and UVB radiation.

Keywords: Epigenetic modification; Photoaging; DNA methylation; Histone modification; Non-coding RNAs