Scientists recently discovered that smoking creates an “archaeological record” of hundreds of DNA mutations. Unfortunately, the study reveals that the genetic mutations are permanent even if the individual has already stopped smoking.
A smoker who consumes 20 cigarettes a day can produce an average of 150 mutations in each lung every year. Scientist discovered the findings after sequencing thousands of tumor genomes.
Cause of Cancer
Analyzing DNA tumor may help researchers to find out the underlying origin of several cancers.
Pamela Pugh started smoking when she was 17 and quit during her early 50s. Sadly, the 69-year-old, doctors diagnosed her with lung cancer in 2013.
Pugh said that she never thought smoking can affect her even though she gave it up a long time ago. She added that “Had I known as a teenager that smoking caused mutations which would stay with me for life then I would never had started”.
Genetic Mutation
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico along with other international group conducted the study. The journal Science published the research.
The study presents a direct link of the mutation in the tumor DNA and the total number of cigarettes smoked.
Prof Sir Mike Stratton, of Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the lead author said, “The more mutations there are, the higher the chance that these will occur in the key genes that we call cancer genes, which convert a normal cell into a cancer cell.”
Researchers discovered that in lung tissues, they found at least 60 carcinogens of the mutational signature chemicals in the tobacco smoke. The lungs are directly exposed to smoke.
However, the scientist did not find the same mutational pattern in the bladders tissues. Since the bladders are not directly exposed to smoke.
The exact event on how the organs react to smoking remains “mysterious and complex”. According to Prof Stratton, smoking contributes to the acceleration of the ordinary mutational sequences. He added that further studies of the investigative methodology can identify other underlying causes of cancer, those that are less known.
Prof Stratton said, “By looking in the genomes of the cancers, we will find the archaeological traces of past exposures which have been responsible for generating the cancers and that may potentially lead to prevention”.
Genetic disruption
A consultant oncologist at the Papworth Hospital and Roy Castle Lung Foundation, Dr. David Gilligan said, “For every 150 mutations in the cell each year that is 150 opportunities for lung cancer to develop. Lung cancer has been at the bottom of the survival league for many years, but there are many exciting developments, including immunotherapy and genetically targeted drug treatments.”
Pugh received a treatment of a trial drug for six months at Papworth and Addenbrooke’s Hospitals in Cambridgeshire. The drug aims to interrupt the contributing genes that make lung cancer progress.
Experts examined DNA tumors in the participants of the Matrix trial to see how the genes respond to the treatment. However, in Pugh’s case, a scan showed that the tumor in her right lung had grown. She needs to leave the experiment to undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
In the UK alone, lung cancer partakes to 35,000 deaths annually. However, with proper medical care, experts estimated 9 out of 10 cases are treatable.
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Prof Lovell-Badge said, “We can’t control this in countries where there are few or no regulations and poor oversight. Unfortunately, the clinics in such countries became used to unregulated operation. It is the patients who are at risk of being duped into paying for methods that have little or no benefit or that are even harmful.”