Epigenetics has become one of the major research directions of human genome after genome sequencing, and plays an important role in many complex pathophysiological processes such as tumor, biological development, aging and neuropathy. The metabolic memory phenomenon in diabetic retinopathy (DR) suggests that the pathogenesis of DR has a complicated relationship with epigenetic factors. Many studies show the changes and roles of histone modification, DNA methylation and non-coding RNA in the development of DR. However, the current understanding of how epigenetic modifications affect diseases is limited, and most studies on histone modifications have not been carried out in DR. There is still a lot of room for development in epigenetic research on DR. At the same time, epigenetic modification is very complicated, and how to integrate the interaction of different modifications in the development stage of DR is the focus of future research work.