환경성 발암 기전에서 유전자-환경 상호작용의 역할

The Role of Gene-environment Interaction in Environmental Carcinogenesis

Evidences supporting gene-environment interaction are accumulating in terms of environmental exposure including lifestyle factors and related genetic variants. One form of defense mechanism against cancer development involves a series of genes whose role is to metabolize (activation/detoxification) and excrete potentially toxic compounds and to repair subtle mistakes in DNA. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief review of the notion of gene-environment interaction, environmental/occupational carcinogens and related cancers, and previous studies of gene-environment interaction on cancers caused by exposure to carcinogenesis. With a number of studies on the interaction between lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking and diet) and genetic polymorphisms in genes involved in xenobiotic metabolism and DNA repair excluded, only several studies have been conducted on the interactive effects between polymorphisms of CYPs, GSTs, ERCCs, XRCCs and environmental/occupational carcinogens such as vinyl chloride, benzo[a]pyrene, and chloroform on carcinogenesis or genotoxicity. Future studies may need to be conducted with sufficient number of subjects and based on occupational cohorts to provide useful information in terms of advanced risk assessment and regulation of exposure level.