Lung Cancer Secrets Revealed
Reported December 31, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — New technology reveals for every 15 cigarettes smoked, a person may develop one genetic mutation that could lead to cancer.
The longer a person smokes and the more cigarettes smoked each day, the higher that person’s risk of developing lung cancer and genetic mutations. A new type of DNA sequencing technology is helping scientists understand why.
An international team of researchers used a new DNA sequencing technology called “massively parallel sequencing” to identify more than 23,000 mutations associated with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and also a new gene involved in lung cancer called CHD7. The number of mutations identified in the study suggests a person may develop one mutation for every 15 cigarettes smoked, said study co-author Dr. John Minna, director of the Nancy B. and Jake L. Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas.
“While these findings are the first step, they have lighted our path to clearly point us in the right direction,” Dr. Minna was quoted as saying. “In addition, they provide the first detailed analysis of a human cancer — lung cancer — that is closely linked to smoking.”
Using the technology, researchers also found distinctive patterns associated with carcinogens present in cigarette smoke.
Source: Nature, December 2009
