Large airway epithelial cells from cigarette smokers with and without lung cancer undergoing flexible bronchoscopy in the operating room for resection of a suspicious lung nodule

mRNA expression was assayed from bronchial epithelial cell samples from smokers with and without lung cancer. A subset of the samples (2 of the lung cancer samples and 3 of the no cancer samples) were pooled and underwent whole transcriptome sequencing. The goals were to compare whole transcriptome sequencing gene expression levels to gene expression levels derived from these samples run on the Affymetrix HGU133A 2.0 platform. Current and former smokers with cancer (n=8) and without cancer (n=5) undergoing flexible bronchoscopy in the operating room for resection of a suspicious lung nodule at Boston University Medical Center were recruited. Patients were classified as having no lung cancer based on the pathological results from the lung biopsy. Patients with no cancer were diagnosed with alternative benign diseases of the chest including organizing pneumonitis, sarcoidosis and chronic inflammation due to foreign body material.