Smoking can permanently alter the activity of genes and have irreversible effects on DNA that maybe linked to cancer, new research shows.

The findings, published in the online journal BMC Genomics, may help to explain why some former smokers contract lung cancer long after they have quit.

Scientists studied cell samples from the lungs of eight current smokers, 12 former smokers and four people who had never smoked.

 

Libraries of DNA sequences were constructed containing data on the activity of more than 1700 genes. The Canadian team found some changes in gene activity, or expression, that affected current smokers but reversed after they had quit the habit for a year or longer. But other changes appeared to be permanent, including a number that were likely to increase cancer susceptibility.

 

Researcher Raj Chari, from the British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, said: “Those genes and functions which do not revert to normal levels upon smoking cessation may provide insight into why former smokers still maintain a risk of developing lung cancer.”

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