Differential Molecular Transcriptomics and Underlying Biological Pathways between Smokers Lung Cancer (Small Cell Lung Carcinoma) in Comparison to Healthy Human Lung Cells

Cancer is a public health crisis affecting approximately 19.3 million globally annually. Lung cancer has the highest percentage of incidence and is responsible for 27% of cancer-related deaths. The lung cancer of prevalence in smokers is small-cell lung carcinoma. Lung cancer cells often exhibit altered gene expression patterns, compared to their normal counterparts. Yet this differential gene expression is not well understood. Herein, we investigated the differential expression of genes in small cell cancer cell lines compared to a healthy lung cell line that can lead to further insights into the proliferation, metastasis, and drug resistance of these lung cancer cells. Whole transcriptomic and small non-coding RNA sequencing was done by Next-generation sequencing (NGS) method, coupled with the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) to decipher the core canonical pathways involved in these lung cancer cell-signaling mechanisms in disease pathophysiology. The findings of this investigation identified multiple genes and small non-coding tRNA/tRNA fragments that were differentially expressed, which thereby showed the possibility of potential diagnostic/prognostic and therapeutic targets. This important transcriptomic analysis can be a valuable tool for developing more effective treatment strategies for smokers lung cancer.