Transcriptomic Studies of the Airway Field of Injury Associated with Smoking-Related Lung Disease

Abstract excerpt

The "field of injury" hypothesis proposes that exposure to an inhaled insult such as cigarette smoke elicits a common molecular response throughout the respiratory tract. This response can therefore be quantified in any airway tissue, including readily accessible epithelial cells in the bronchus, nose, and mouth. High-throughput technologies, such as whole-genome gene expression microarrays, can be employed to...