title: Upper airway gene expression in smokers: the mouth as a "window to the soul" of lung carcinogenesis?
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: 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
authors.forename: Avrum
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spira
mesh_terms: 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*
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers