Lung cancer increases HO concentration in the exhaled breath condensate, extent of mtDNA damage, and mtDNA copy number in buccal mucosa.

We have shown that the HO concentration in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) in lung cancer patients increases significantly compared to the EBC of healthy people and revealed the correlation between the HO level in the EBC and amount of mtDNA damage in buccal mucosa cells. The HO hyper-production may trigger mitochondrial biogenesis, thereby resulting in an increase in mtDNA copy number. However, we did not observe a significant difference in the studied parameters between smokers and non-smokers.

Targeted sequencing to discover germline variants in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in a Russian population and their association with breast cancer risk.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are tumor suppressor genes involved in the repair of DNA damage and transcriptional regulation of the cell cycle. Alterations in BRCA1/2 lead to production of functionally defective proteins that impair DNA repair. Certain mutant variants of BRCA1/2 are strongly associated with increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers, with emerging data on association with other types of cancer.