Informative Essay On Smoking

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Because you regularly smoke tobacco, which is one of the most avoidable risk factors for cancer, I wish to inform you of a research article that reveals progression toward understanding the mechanism by which tobacco smoke damages the genome, an organism’s complete set of DNA, and creates the mutations that ultimately cause cancer.
Tobacco smoking is linked to at least 17 different types of cancer such as lung cancer and oral cancer, and it leads to more than six million deaths per year. The smoke itself is made up of a large mixture of chemicals, at least 60 being carcinogens, substances that can lead to cancer. The way in which these substances cause cancer is by damaging the DNA which can lead to mutations in the cancer gene. The carcinogen …show more content…

Each base substitution was characterized using a 96-mutatino classification system that includes six substitutions together. In the study, 5243 cancer genome sequences of cancer that have an enhanced risk from smoking were examined to identify mutational signatures and methylation changes associated with tobacco smoking. The samples studied included 2490 from tobacco smokers and 1063 from non-smokers. Thus, the mutational consequences of smoking tobacco and refraining from smoking was able to be compared for lung, larynx, pharynx, oral cavity, esophageal, bladder, liver, cervical, kidney, and pancreatic …show more content…

Signatures 2, 4, 5, 13, and 16 showed significant contributions. Signature 4 is classified by C > A base mutations, and was found to likely be the consequence of misreplication of DNA damage from carcinogens. Signatures 2 and 13 are made up by C>T and C>G mutations, but they were only shown more in smokers than nonsmokers in lung cancer, while still being present in the other cancer types, unrelated to tobacco smoking. Signature 5 is characterized by mutations across all 96 subtypes of base substitution and is found in all cancer types. It occurs widespread in nonsmokers and in cancers unrelated to smoking; therefore, it can be concluded that it is probably not a direct consequence of misreplication of DNA damaged from carcinogens. Signature 16 is characterized by T>C mutations and was only increasingly detected in liver cancer for smokers versus nonsmokers, but its mechanism is

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