Janket SJ, Qureshi M, Bascones-Martinez A, González-Febles J, Meurman JH. Holistic paradigm in carcinogenesis: Genetics, epigenetics, immunity, inflammation and oral infections. World J Immunol 2017; 7(2): 11-23 [DOI: 10.5411/wji.v7.i2.11]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Sok-Ja Janket, DMD, MPH, Department of Periodontology, Boston University H. M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, 100 East Newton Street, Room B08A, Boston, MA 02118, United States. skjanket@bu.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Immunology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Immunol. Jul 27, 2017; 7(2): 11-23 Published online Jul 27, 2017. doi: 10.5411/wji.v7.i2.11
Holistic paradigm in carcinogenesis: Genetics, epigenetics, immunity, inflammation and oral infections
Sok-Ja Janket, Marium Qureshi, Antonio Bascones-Martinez, Jerian González-Febles, Jukka H Meurman
Sok-Ja Janket, Department of Periodontology, Boston University H. M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA 02118, United States
Sok-Ja Janket, Marium Qureshi, Department of General Dentistry, Boston University H. M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA 02118, United States
Antonio Bascones-Martinez, Jerian González-Febles, Department of Oral Medicine and Surgery, Complutense University, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Jukka H Meurman, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, 02160 Helsinki, Finland
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this paper.
Supported byHelsinki University Hospital funds, No. TYH2015323 (to Meurman JH).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest associated with this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Sok-Ja Janket, DMD, MPH, Department of Periodontology, Boston University H. M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, 100 East Newton Street, Room B08A, Boston, MA 02118, United States. skjanket@bu.edu
Telephone: +1-617-4141066 Fax: +1-617-4141061
Received: January 8, 2017 Peer-review started: January 12, 2017 First decision: February 16, 2017 Revised: February 25, 2017 Accepted: April 4, 2017 Article in press: April 7, 2017 Published online: July 27, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: A recent debate among renowned scholars prompted us to review cancer pathogenesis in a holistic approach. One group attributed cancer to “random errors in DNA multiplication” (Tomasetti C, Science, 2015) while other experts credited environmental factors for cancer causation (Wu S, Nature, 2016). However, we put forward the concept that cancer is multifactorial and both intrinsic (DNA multiplication errors) and extrinsic (environmental) factors contribute to carcinogenesis. In this review, we examined these risk factors in some detail covering genetics, epigenetics, immunity, inflammation and infections. We acknowledge the contribution of each risk factor is different in various types of cancer. In some cancers, genetics plays a powerful role while in others, metabolism contributes a stronger impact. Therefore, a holistic understanding of carcinogenesis is truly necessary considering multisystem involvement in cancer development.
