title: Gene expression profiles associated with cigarette smoking and moist snuff consumption.
abstract: Among the different tobacco products that are available on the US market, cigarette smoking is shown to be the most harmful and the effects of cigarette smoking have been well studied. US epidemiological studies indicate that non-combustible tobacco products are less harmful than smoking and yet very limited biological and mechanistic information is available on the effects of these alternative tobacco products. For the first time, we characterized gene expression profiling in PBMCs from moist snuff consumers (MSC), compared with that from consumers of cigarettes (SMK) and non-tobacco consumers (NTC).
  
  
  
  Microarray analysis identified 100 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the SMK and NTC groups and 46 DEGs between SMK and MSC groups. However, we found no significant differences in gene expression between MSC and NTC. Both hierarchical clustering and principle component analysis revealed that MSC and NTC expression profiles were more similar than to SMK. Random forest classification identified a subset of DEGs which predicted SMK from either NTC or MSC with high accuracy (AUC 0.98).
  
  
  
  PMBC gene expression profiles of NTC and MSC are similar to each other, while SMK exhibit distinct profiles with alterations in immune related pathways. In addition to discovering several biomarkers, these studies support further understanding of the biological effects of different tobacco products.
  
  
  
  ClinicalTrials.gov. Identifier: NCT01923402 . Date of Registration: August 14, 2013. Study was retrospectively registered.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, 27101, USA.
authors.forename: Subhashini
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Arimilli
authors.affiliation: Quire Inc., 20 S. Dudley St., Memphis, TN, 38103, USA.
authors.forename: Behrouz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Madahian
authors.affiliation: RAI Services Company, PO Box 1487, Winston-Salem, NC, 27102, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: RAI Services Company, 401 North Main Street, Winston-Salem, NC, 27101, USA.
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Marano
authors.affiliation: RAI Services Company, PO Box 1487, Winston-Salem, NC, 27102, USA. prasadg@RJRT.com.
authors.forename: G L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Prasad
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019540:Area Under Curve; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012907:Smoking; D014030:Tobacco, Smokeless; D059467:Transcriptome
keywords: Biomarkers; Gene expression; Moist snuff; PBMC; Smoking; qRT-PCR