About This Project

Lung cancer, the largest cause of cancer mortality, accounts for 19% of all cancer deaths

Our previous experiment demonstrated the ability of carcinogen solvents to remove up to 65% of a carcinogen, b(a)p, from cells, as shown on the intro video

This experiment will test the hypothesis that carcinogen solvents, which reduce cellular carcinogen concentrations, will reduce genotoxic effects as measured by genomic analysis of treated vs untreated 3D pulmonary cell cultures

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Lung cancer remains the largest cause of cancer death globally for several decades, accounting for nearly 20% of all cancer deaths (IARC factsheets). The vast majority of lung cancer patients, 85%-90%, are individuals exposed to tobacco smoke (IARC MONOGRAPHS). The remaining cases are correlated to occupational exposure to other carcinogens through different mechanisms.

What is the significance of this project?

Smokers develop lung cancer primarily because of an accumulation of chemical carcinogens. Because we know chemical carcinogens are the primary driver for lung cancer, the effective removal of chemical carcinogens may be a solution for reducing lung cancer rates. Chemical carcinogens become DNA adducts that lead to mutations in DNA. Our hypothesis is that reducing the concentration of chemical carcinogens in the lungs in a patient will reduce the incidence of lung cancer in that patient. To test this, we hypothesize that carcinogen exposed lung cells treated with carcinogen solvent liquids will show a lower genotoxic response compared to untreated cells.

What are the goals of the project?

To establish whether the removal of carcinogens from cells, using carcinogen solvents, reduces genotoxic effects of chemical carcinogens.

A pure model carcinogen and an environmentally relevant mixture of carcinogens/cocarcinogens and procarcinogens will be used to insult 3D lung tissue models.

Carcinogen solvents will subsequently be used to treat the insulted tissue models, and 24 hours later the tissue model cells will be collected for genomics analysis.

RNA sequencing will be used to establish all gene expression changes between the treated and un-treated experimental series.