Researchers at Imperial College London and the Human Genetics Foundation (HuGeF) in Italy have identified a number of sites in the DNA of blood that have been chemically tagged as a result of smoking.
These tags are also detectable in lung tissue and could be used to measure the increased risk of certain cancers such as breast and bowel, as well as lung.
Smoking leaves a footprint on the surface of the DNA but the sequence of genetic code remains the same. This is known as an “epigenetic” modification. Once you give up smoking, these tags start to disappear although they never quite match the unmarked DNA of a non-smoker.
In this initial study, measuring the level of tagging allowed the researchers to investigate the risk of breast and bowel cancer associated with smoking. They plan to expand the work into other areas such as lung cancer.
A link between smoking and breast cancer has not been proven but the researchers believe that previous studies haven’t had the same genetic or epigenetic measures of smoke exposure available. This test will make that information available to scientists so they can spot any DNA tags that might be attributable to any risk that might exist.
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