Full Project 2 – Lung Cancer Risk
Title: Circulating immune cell profiles, immune biomarkers and lung cancer risk
Project Leads:
- Qiuyin Cai, MD, PhD – Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
- Maureen Sanderson, PhD – Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
- Xiaofei Wang, PhD – Tennesse State University
Project Summary:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S., with Blacks suffering a higher incidence than any other ethnic or racial group, a disparity that can’t be fully accounted for by smoking and other known risk factors. It is well-recognized that the immune system, including peripheral blood leukocytes, plays a key role in protecting hosts against cancers. However, direct evidence linking pre-diagnostic circulating immune cell profiles with lung cancer risk is limited. Several circulating pro- or anti-inflammatory cytokines have been reported to be associated with lung cancer risk. However, most prior studies only investigated a few candidates’ immune biomarkers and the results are not consistent. In this study, we will examine our hypotheses that circulating immune cell profiles and immune biomarkers are associated with subsequent lung cancer risk, and racial differences in immune cell profiles and biomarkers may explain, at least in part, the lung cancer racial disparity. To test these novel hypotheses, we propose to conduct a nested case-control study using the exceptional resources from the Southern Community Cohort Study (SCCS), a prospective cohort study of ~86,000 adults, two-thirds Blacks, and the remainder mostly non-Hispanic Whites. This is the first study including both Blacks and Whites to evaluate circulating immune cell profiles, immune biomarkers and lung cancer risk. This application is highly innovative by using novel genomics approaches to prospectively profile circulating immune cells and applies a genetic instruments approach for causal inference. The impact of this proposed study is very high since the findings will help us to better understand lung cancer etiology and disparities and identify biomarkers for the identification of high-risk individuals for low-dose computerized tomography (CT) screening.
Specific Aims:
1) To investigate the associations of circulating immune cell profiles in pre-diagnostic blood samples with the subsequent risk of lung cancer.
2) To comprehensively investigate the associations of circulating immune biomarkers with lung cancer risk.
3) To evaluate the possible interaction of immune cell profiles and immune biomarkers with smoking in relation to lung cancer risk.