Fig. 1.

Schematic representation of the mechanism of epigenetic alterations due to exposure to neurotoxic metals. Epigenetics changes are elicited in the form of DNA methylation, histone modification, and/ or ncRNA. DNA methylation either promotes gene expression by hypomethylation or represses gene expression by hypermethylation. The histone proteins of DNA can be epigenetically modified in over 16 ways (the most common six are presented above). The ncRNA epigenetic change represses protein translation. DNMT - DNA methyltransferase; miRNA – MicroRNA;