Benzene uptake and glutathione S-transferase T1 status as determinants of S-phenylmercapturic acid in cigarette smokers in the multiethnic cohort

Christopher A. Haiman, Yesha M. Patel, Daniel O. Stram, Steven G. Carmella, Menglan Chen, Lynne R. Wilkens, Loic Le Marchand, Stephen S. Hecht

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25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Research from the Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) demonstrated that, for the same quantity of cigarette smoking, African Americans and Native Hawaiians have a higher lung cancer risk than Whites, while Latinos and Japanese Americans are less susceptible. We collected urine samples from 2,239 cigarette smokers from five different ethnic groups in the MEC and analyzed each sample for S-phenylmercapturic acid (SPMA), a specific biomarker of benzene uptake. African Americans had significantly higher (geometric mean [SE] 3.69 [0.2], p<0.005) SPMA/ ml urine thanWhites (2.67 [0.13]) while Japanese Americans had significantly lower levels than Whites (1.65 [0.07], p<0.005). SPMA levels in Native Hawaiians and Latinos were not significantly different from those ofWhites. We also conducted a genome-wide association study in search of genetic risk factors related to benzene exposure. The glutathione S-transferase T1 (GSTT1) deletion explained between 14.2-31.6%(p = 5.4x10-157) and the GSTM1 deletion explained between 0.2%-2.4%of the variance (p = 1.1x10-9) of SPMA levels in these populations. Ethnic differences in levels of SPMA remained strong even after controlling for the effects of these two deletions. These results demonstrate the powerful effect of GSTT1 status on SPMA levels in urine and show that uptake of benzene in African American, White, and Japanese American cigarette smokers is consistent with their lung cancer risk in the MEC. While benzene is not generally considered a cause of lung cancer, its metabolite SPMA could be a biomarker for other volatile lung carcinogens in cigarette smoke.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere0150641
JournalPloS one
Volume11
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Haiman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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