Smoking causes the appearance of DNA mutations that result in the interruption of protein synthesis, especially those involved in limiting tumor growth, according to a study published in Science Advances. Tumor suppressor genes encode information for the synthesis of proteins that prevent the development and growth of malignant tumor formations.
The main conclusions:
- SGMs (stop-gain mutations) were present in significantly increased numbers in smokers
- SGMs mutations affected cellular pathways involved in cancer and tumor suppressor genes such as TP53, FAT1 and APC
- The more a person smokes, the more mutations involved in cancer development are present, and the tumors are more complex and more difficult to treat
- Smoking causes most SGMs in the lung, at the level of the cephalic extremity and in the esophagus, representing the regions directly exposed to the smoke produced
Smoking is associated with the acquisition of mutations, but their impact can be variable. Cancer develops on the basis of a few somatic mutations, which give the cell oncogenic properties, but most genetic changes accumulated during life under the impact of various environmental factors do not cause malignancy.
Some mutations alter the sequence so that stop codons are introduced, which interrupt the synthesis of the coded polypeptide chain and thus the genes lose their function. These changes preferentially accumulate in cancer cells.
The study evaluated the impact on protein coding of single nucleotide substitutions in more than 12,000 genomes, representing 18 cancer types. The sources used were The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) PanCanAtlas, Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) and Hartwig Medical Foundation (HMF).
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2023-12-26 08:35:26
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