Upper airway gene expression in smokers: the mouth as a "window to the soul" of lung carcinogenesis?
This perspective on Boyle et al. (beginning on page 266 in this issue of the journal) explores transcriptomic profiling of upper airway epithelium as a biomarker of host response to tobacco smoke exposure. Boyle et al. have shown a striking relationship between smoking-related gene expression changes in the mouth and bronchus. This relationship suggests that buccal gene expression may serve as a relatively noninvasive surrogate marker of the physiologic response of the lung to tobacco smoke that could be used in large-scale screening and chemoprevention studies for lung cancer.
Spira
Avrum
A
Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, and The Pulmonary Center, Boston University Medical Center, 72 East Concord Street, Boston, MA 02118. aspira@bu.edu
D015870:Gene Expression / Q000502:physiology*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000517:prevention & control; D009061:Mouth Mucosa / Q000378:metabolism*; D012907:Smoking / Q000235:genetics*
D005819:Genetic Markers