4 billion people around the world,

or about 40% of the world’s population, depend on biomass fuels (wood, charcoal, dung, crop residue) to meet their energy needs for cooking and heating. The burden is especially high in Asia. Studies suggest that levels of pollutants including particulate matter <10 mu m and polycyclic LOXO-101 aromatic hydrocarbons indoors in homes where biomass fuels are used far exceed levels recommended as safe. While in vitro and in vivo studies in animal models suggest that wood smoke emission extracts are mutagenic and carcinogenic, epidemiologic studies have been inconsistent. In this review, we discuss possible carcinogenic mechanisms of action of biomass fuel emissions, summarize the biological evidence for carcinogenesis, and review the epidemiologic evidence in humans of biomass fuel emissions as a risk factor for lung cancer. Finally, we highlight some issues relevant FG-4592 cell line for interpreting the epidemiologic evidence for the relationship between biomass fuel exposure and lung cancer: these include methodologic

considerations and recognition of possible effect modification by genetic susceptibility, smoking status, age of exposure and histologic type.”
“The lung begins as a simple outpouching of the foregut and develops by stages into a highly complex organ, the proper function of which is essential to life for terrestrial mammals. Nec-1s supplier Interruption of normal lung development can result in death or chronic disease. Conversely, repair after lung injury, as well as many acquired diseases, involves recapitulation, often aberrant, of developmental

pathways. The principal paradigms in lung development are branching morphogenesis and alveolar septation, but others, such as vasculogenesis, are critical. These are partially understood at the level of cellular differentiation and molecular signaling, but a true systems biology analysis of lung development and lung repair/regeneration, including bioinformatics analysis and integration of data from unbiased and complementary -omics level studies, is still lacking. The past decade has seen increasing numbers of genomic, proteomic, metabolomics, and epigenomic studies of lung development and lung remodeling. In many cases, these studies have confirmed the importance of pathways uncovered painstakingly through single-molecule approaches, but they have also uncovered novel and unexpected pathways and new paradigms such as noncoding RNA. Future studies will need to combine data from multiple repositories and apply novel mathematical and computational models in order to establish a systems-level understanding of this remarkable organ. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2013, 5:125133. doi: 10.1002/wsbm.1205 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.