Involvement of Circulating Cell-Free Mitochondrial DNA and Proinflammatory Cytokines in Pathogenesis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Lung Cancer.

Objective: Circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA (cf-MtDNA) has been reported in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancers. However, inter-relationships among the three biological events have not been well-characterized. Therefore, our investigation was conducted to better understand the role of cf-MtDNA on pathogenesis of the two diseases.