Lung Cancer Protein Expression Profiles of Smokers and Non-Smokers.

Epidemiological studies have established a causal relationship between cigarette smoking and respiratory tract cancer. The knowledge about the interaction of tobacco constituents with cellular systems is, however, still incomplete. Therefore, we analyzed 36 factors with known or assumed relevance and found that 8 proteins in lung cancer were associated with the smoking habits of 94 patients.

Prediction of Drug Sensitivity and Resistance of Cancer by Protein Expression Profiling.

Although the statistical probability of therapeutic success is known for larger groups of cancer patients, the clinical response to chemotherapy of the individual patient remains uncertain. It would be of great value to know whether or not an individual tumor responds to the proposed therapy. The concept of sensitivity testing of tumors for individualized therapy traces back to the 1970s.

Expression of drug resistance gene products during progression of lung carcinomas.

In order to study whether the presence of mechanisms of drug resistance is a characteristic unique to advanced lung cancer or occurs already early in the course of the disease, we investigated the expression of gluathione S-transferase-pi (GST-pi), P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and metallothionein (MT) in 80 human lung carcinomas and in 20 normal lung tissues using immunohistochemistry. We found that all three proteins were expressed in resected normal lung and lung carcinomas. Expression of GST-pi and MT was elevated in tumor tissues in comparison to normal lung tissues, whereas P-gp was highly expressed in normal lung.