Chemical Carcinogenesis, 2011 Current Cancer Research Series

This volume will provide a contemporary account of advances in chemical carcinogenesis. It will promote the view that it is chemical alteration of the DNA that is a route cause of many cancers. The multi-stage model of chemical carcinogenesis, exposure to major classes of human carcinogens and their mode-of-action will be a focal point. The balance between metabolic activation to form biological reactive intermediates and their detoxification, ensuing DNA-lesions and their repair will be profiled. It will describe the chemical changes that occur in DNA that result from endogenous insults including epigenetic changes that lead to gene silencing. It will describe major mechanisms of mutagenesis, affects on tumor suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes, and how cell-cycle check points can be by-passed by the "stealth-like" properties of chemical carcinogens. Environmental agents that can promote tumor formation will be discussed. The monograph will have wide appeal as a knowledge base for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty interested in this aspect of cancer causation and research.

Historical Overview of Chemical Carcinogenesis.- Multistage Carcinogenesis.- Tobacco Smoke Carcinogens and Lung Cancer.- Mechanisms of Estrogen Carcinogenesis: Modulation by Botanical Natural Products.- Heterocyclic Amines: Potential Human Carcinogens.- Aflatoxins and Hepatocellular Carcinoma.- Metabolic Activation of Chemical Carcinogens.- Detoxication of  Chemical Carcinogens and Chemoprevention.- Covalent Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon-DNA Adducts, Carcinogenicity, Structure and Function.- Oxidation and Deamination of DNA by Endogenous Sources.- Lipid Peroxide-DNA Adducts.- Chemical Carcinogenesis and  Epigenetics.- Nucletoide Excision Repair From Bacteria to Humans: Structure-Function Studies.-  Base Excision Repair: Role of DNA Polymerase b in Late Stage Base Excision Repair.- O⁶-Alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase.- By-Pass DNA Polymerases.- Mutagenesis: The Outcome of Faulty Replication of DNA.- p53 and Ras-Mutation