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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2026; 32(3): 114229
Published online Jan 21, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v32.i3.114229
Published online Jan 21, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v32.i3.114229
Beyond anti-inflammatory strategies: Epigenetic targets as emerging therapeutic frontiers in acute pancreatitis
Li-Ping Liang, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Guangzhou First People’s Hospital, Guangzhou 510180, Guangdong Province, China
Le Zhang, Dan-Dan Jin, Shao-Heng Zhang, Department of Gastroenterology, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510280, Guangdong Province, China
Le Liu, Shenzhen Clinical Research Center for Digestive Disease, Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen 518000, Guangdong Province, China
Co-first authors: Li-Ping Liang and Le Zhang.
Author contributions: Liang LP and Zhang L contributed equally as co-first authors; Liu L served as the corresponding author and provided overall project supervision; Liang LP and Zhang L drafted the manuscript; Jin DD, Zhang SH, and Liu L subsequent revisions incorporating input; all authors participated in manuscript refinement and approved the final version for submission.
Supported by Shenzhen Medical Research Fund, No. A2403044; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82200612; and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, No. 2023A1515111183.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Le Liu, MD, Principal Investigator, Shenzhen Clinical Research Center for Digestive Disease, Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, No. 1333 Xinhu Road, Shenzhen 518000, Guangdong Province, China. 1402744723@smu.edu.cn
Received: September 15, 2025
Revised: November 14, 2025
Accepted: December 4, 2025
Published online: January 21, 2026
Processing time: 123 Days and 20.9 Hours
Revised: November 14, 2025
Accepted: December 4, 2025
Published online: January 21, 2026
Processing time: 123 Days and 20.9 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Acute pancreatitis (AP) remains without effective mechanism-based therapy beyond supportive care. This editorial emphasizes epigenetic regulation as an emerging therapeutic frontier, highlighting how the traditional Chinese medicine alkaloid rutaecarpine protects against AP via enhancer of EZH2-mediated repression of FBXW11. By integrating evidence on FBXW11 as an inflammatory biomarker, the pleiotropic actions of rutaecarpine, and the clinical availability of EZH2 inhibitors, this article outlines an epigenetic, multi-target framework for future AP interventions.