Correlation of Smoking-Associated DNA Methylation Changes in Buccal Cells With DNA Methylation Changes in Epithelial Cancer JAMA Oncol. Published online May 14, 2015. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2015.1053
Andrew E. Teschendorff, PhD1,2; Zhen Yang, PhD2; Andrew Wong, PhD3; Christodoulos P. Pipinikas, PhD4; Yinming Jiao, MSc2; Allison Jones, BSc5; Shahzia Anjum, PhD5; Rebecca Hardy, PhD3; Helga B. Salvesen, MD6; Christina Thirlwell, PhD4; Samuel M. Janes, PhD7; Diana Kuh, PhD3; Martin Widschwendter, MD5
At a Glance
¶ The purpose of the research was to assess the suitability of buccal cells as an epithelial source of tissue to examine the effects of smoking on the epigenome, and to test whether these effects are also seen in smoke-related epithelial cancers.
¶ Smoking is associated with widespread changes in the DNA methylation landscape of buccal cells.
¶ Some smoking-associated DNA methylation changes are common to buccal and blood tissue, but buccal cells exhibit significantly more changes than blood cells.
¶ Smoking-associated DNA methylation changes in buccal cells correlate with DNA methylation changes in epithelial cancers and do so most strongly in smoke-related epithelial cancer.
