The new cigarette labeling: "A Mutation in Every Pack"

Using the latest gene sequencing technique, scientists for the first time have the complete sequence of lung cancer- all 23, 000 mutations!!

Now with only 23,000 protein genes that works out to one mutation per protein.  When I first heard this I thought, no way, where are the DNA repair systems we heard about in school.  While the authors saw lots of evidence of repair, it just couldn't keep up.  Imagine how many mutations there would have been without good repair.

In fact they found a new system of repair that seemed to work in the 'more important' areas of the DNA than in the non-important areas.

Now for the chemists.  When you take the 60 or so chemicals found in tobacco smoke and treat DNA in a test tube you break or modify specific bonds in the DNA in a 'signature' reaction that always is the same and therefore can be identified with each of the 60 chemicals.  So what kinds of signature reactions in the lung cancer DNA? You guessed it. The 'signature' for tobacco damage.  Cause and effect has been taken to the level of the chemical bond.

But just to be clear. This was a test of normal and cancerous DNA from the same person.  The next person they study in this way is likely to have the same number of mutations but very few will be exactly in the same place.  After all, even with 23,000 mutations that is only one mutation for each 300,000 bases in the total DNA. So we are left with the unpleasant conclusion that every cancer is unique and that the Holy Grail of modern research, personalized medicine, is a cruel joke on the pharmaceutical industry and is too true- no two cancer patients have the same disease and therapy will have to be developed for a market of one person.  The Blockbuster drugs of the last century, defined as $1.0 B US in sales per year, will be a history lesson only.

Finally, the authors calculated that the mutation rate coupled with the smoking rate lead to the bizarre conclusion that you get one mutation for every 15 cigarettes.  So the Surgeon General can now put on the label of each pack:  "I have determined that this pack of cigarettes is going to cause a mutation in one of the cells of your lungs. Many are innocent but some will cause cancer. So the question you've got to ask yourself is,

"Do I feel lucky today?"

I thought these were interesting pictures- like looking up close at the fangs of a Cobra. This is the genetic picture of death as painted by lung cancer (top) and colon cancer (bottom).

Pubmed Reference