George G Chen
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
China
Title: Thromboxane in smoking-induced lung carcinogenesis – potential new pathways for intervention
Biography
Biography: George G Chen
Abstract
As a leading cancer in the world, 85-90% of lung cancer cases are attributable to cigarette smoking directly or indirectly. Though cigarette smoking is preventable, the incidence of tobacco smoking remains very high in some parts of the world and such a situation is likely to remain in the foreseeable future due to sociocultural factors and other issues. There is not an effective treatment that is specially developed for smoking-related lung cancer, contributing to the high mortality of this malignancy. Using cultured lung epithelial cells, human lung cancer tissues, and the mouse lung tumor model, we studied roles of thromboxane A2 (TXA2), thromboxane synthase (TXS) and its receptors (TPa and TPb) in smoking-induced lung tumorigenesis and analyzed potential molecules for targeting therapy against this cancer. We have detailed how the involvement of TXS and TXA2 in smoking-induced lung cancer cell proliferation, growth, resistance to apoptosis, and we have identified a novel auto-regulatory feedback loop for TPα activation. We conclude that smoking promotes lung tumor growth via inducing TXS and TPα, which constitutes an auto-positive feedback loop to exaggerate the growth. Therefore, TPα and TXS appear to be the ideal targets against smoking-related lung cancer.