Jerry Stitzel, University of Colorado, Boulder
The CHRNA gene is active in brain areas linked to addiction. In this image from a mouse brain, the bright white areas are the brain regions in which the gene is highly active.
Your DNA influences how much you smoke and whether you will develop lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to an international team of researchers led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The study is the first large-scale effort to match genetics with smoking, lung cancer and COPD combined. The investigators studied 38,000 smokers and found that two groups of gene variants on chromosome 15 influence risk for all three problems. Their findings appear in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) Genetics.
“We put together a consortium from around the world and analyzed DNA variants that we know cause biological changes in smokers,” says the study’s senior investigator Laura Jean Bierut, MD. “We were able to demonstrate that both of the variants affect the amount a person smokes. Then we showed that the same pattern of variants contributes to lung cancer and COPD.”
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