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Smoke signals in the DNA of normal lung cells

Healthy cells in smokers’ lungs have a high burden of mutations, similar to the mutational profile of lung cancer. Surprisingly, ex-smokers’ lungs have a large fraction of healthy cells with nearly normal profiles.
  1. Gerd P. Pfeifer

    1. Gerd P. Pfeifer is at the Center for Epigenetics, Van Andel Institute, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503, USA.

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According to the World Health Organization, there are 1.1 billion smokers worldwide and an estimated 1.8 million deaths from lung cancer annually. Lung cancer caused by smoking can take decades to arise, and smokers have up to a 30-fold higher risk of developing the disease than do non-smokers1. Carcinogenic components of tobacco smoke promote lung cancer by causing DNA damage that can lead to mutations through known mechanisms, but what the initial consequences of smoking are for healthy lung cells is poorly understood. Writing in Nature, Yoshida et al.2 report the mutational profiles of 632 healthy lung cells obtained from whole-genome sequencing of biopsied tissue from 16 individuals: children, adults, non-smokers, current smokers and ex-smokers. The authors analysed the frequency and properties of the mutations present, how they differed according to age and smoking status, and how these mutations related to those found in a type of lung cancer called squamous-cell carcinoma.

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Nature 578, 224-226 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00165-7

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