비흡연자의 폐암 과학적 규명
담배를 피우지 않는 비흡연자가 폐암에 걸리는 이유를 과학적으로 규명한 논문이 랜싯 종양학(Lancet Oncology) 최신호에 실렸다는 AFP 통신 뉴스입니다.
메이요 클리닉의 Ping Yang 박사가 이끄는 연구팀은 단일염기다형성(SNP) 검색을 통해 제13번 염색체에 있는 2개의 특정 SNP가 비협연자의 폐암발생 위험을 높여준다는 사실을 밝혀냈다고 합니다. 이들 2개의 유전자는 세포증식을 조절하는 단백질(GPC5)의 활동을 억제하는 것으로 추정된다고 합니다.
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Gene study highlights cancer risk for “never smokers”
출처 : AFP통신 Sun Mar 21, 9:55 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100322/ts_afp/healthdiseasecancer_20100322015535
PARIS (AFP) – A trawl through the DNA codes of hundreds of individuals may help explain why some people who never smoke may be unusually at risk from lung cancer, doctors said on Monday.
Lung cancer is commonly believed to be the preserve of people who smoke or who have smoked.
Yet 10 percent of all lung cancer patients worldwide are “never smokers”, meaning they have not smoked a single cigarette or their lifetime’s tally is less than 100 cigarettes.
The proportion is even higher in Asia, where between 30 and 40 percent of lung cancer victims are “never smokers”. Nearly two-thirds of the worldwide tally among “never smokers” are women.
Work to assess the vulnerability of “never smokers” has been a somewhat neglected issue in cancer research, which has focussed on the far bigger number of smokers who develop lung tumours.
Gene sleuths led by Ping Yang from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, in Rochester, Minnesota, found two telltale genetic variants in Chromosome 13 in a study of 754 never smokers, with or without lung cancer.
Having these variants boosts the risk of lung cancer by nearly 60 percent, the study found.
The variants appear to suppress levels of a protein called GPC5, which plays a role in cell proliferation.
Further work is needed to confirm these findings and explore why never smokers develop cancer.
One theory is that someone with genetic vulnerability could develop lung cancer after a common, but as yet unidentified, trigger. Possible candidates include second-hand tobacco smoke, environmental pollutants, arsenic and the human papillomavirus.
The paper is published online by the journal The Lancet Oncology.
