Alcohol and Cancer Samir Zakhari Vasilis Vasiliou Q. Max Guo ● ● Editors Alcohol and Cancer Editors Samir Zakhari, Ph.D. Vasilis Vasiliou, Ph.D. Director Professor and Director of Toxicology Division of Metabolism and Health Effects Graduate Program National Institute on Alcohol Abuse Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Alcoholism University of Colorado Denver National Institutes of Health C238-P15 RC2, Room P15-3111 5635 Fishers Lane, Room 2031 12700 East 19th Avenue Bethesda, MD 20892-9304 Aurora, CO 80045 USA USA [email protected] [email protected] Q. Max Guo, Ph.D. Division of Metabolism and Health Effects National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism National Institutes of Health 5635 Fishers Lane, Room 2031 Bethesda, MD 20892-9304 USA [email protected] ISBN 978-1-4614-0039-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-0040-0 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-0040-0 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011934679 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Preface Chronic alcohol consumption is a major health problem worldwide, and may lead to addiction and damage of almost every organ of the body. The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Burden of Disease has concluded that approximately 1.8 million people die each year due to alcohol (3.2% of all deaths). One of the most significant diseases caused by chronic alcohol consumption is cancer. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, alcohol is considered a carcinogen for the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colorectum, and the female breast. Worldwide, a total of approximately 389,000 cases of these cancers representing 3.6% of all cancers (5.2% in men and 1.7% in women) are derived from chronic alcohol ingestion. The fact that alcohol causes cancer is not new. The first observation that alcohol is responsible for esophageal cancer was published by the French pathologist Lamu in Paris in 1910. It took a long time until 1978 when the National Institute of Health (NIH) organized a workshop on this topic due to the fact that more and more epide- miologic data appeared demonstrating the causal relationship between alcohol and certain types of cancer. However, at this time mechanisms of alcohol-mediated carcinogenesis were almost completely unknown. A second workshop in 2004 took into account the increasing literature on possible mechanisms by which ethanol and/or its first metabolite acetaldehyde stimulates carcinogenesis. The results of this workshop were published in ALCOHOL. A further step forward in bringing this important issue to the scientific public was the workshop held in Lyon at the IARC in February 2007 which ended in a clear statement that alcoholic beverages are carcinogenic and that acetaldehyde is a causal factor in esophageal carcinogenesis published in the April issue 2007 of LANCET ONCOLOGY. Considering this historic development, it was time for a more detailed look at the effect of alcohol on carcinogenesis in a broader perspective, including epidemiology, biochemistry as well as molecular and cell biology. On June 8–9, 2010, the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects of the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) has invited a panel of experts to discuss this important issue. As a result, Dr. Sam Zakhari and his colleagues presented a comprehensive v vi Preface book on alcohol and cancer with major emphasis on molecular mechanisms, including the effect of alcohol metabolism on cancer, the effect of ethanol on epigenetics, intracellular signal pathways, retinoic acid metabolism, protein homeostasis, inflam- mation, immune surveillance, and stem cells. This book could have come at no better time. The contents of this book is carefully designed and analytically pre- sented, summarizing an up-to-date knowledge on this topic with the most recent literature until summer 2010. The book “Alcohol and Cancer” edited by Sam Zakhari, Q. Max Guo, and Vasilis Vasiliou is a comprehensive and unique summary on a topic of general and specific interest to a broad readership, including oncologists, basic cancer researchers, gastroenterologists, hepatologists, and other specialists dealing with cancer. It will undoubtedly become an international landmark. Dr. Sam Zakhari works at the NIH since 1986. He is Director of the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects of the NIAAA, Bethesda, MD, USA. He is an inter- nationally well-known expert in the field of alcohol metabolism and alcohol associ- ated toxicity, having worked in this field for decades. It is he and his coworkers who guarantee for the high standard and quality of this book. I wish to thank the authors for presenting an outstanding summary on a most important issue and I am con- vinced that this book receives the international recognition which it deserves. Heidelberg Helmut K. Seitz, MD, PhD, AGAF October, 2010 Contents 1 Alcohol as a Human Carcinogen .......................................................... 1 Philip J. Brooks 2 Cancer and Alcohol: An Overview of Tumorigenesis ......................... 5 William C. Dunty Jr. 3 Alcohol and Cancer Epidemiology ....................................................... 19 R. Thomas Gentry 4 Alcohol Metabolism and Its Implications for Cancer......................... 37 Gary J. Murray, Philip J. Brooks, and Samir Zakhari 5 Epigenetics, Alcohol, and Cancer ......................................................... 69 Dale Hereld and Q. Max Guo 6 Alcohol, Cancer Genes, and Signaling Pathways ................................ 93 William C. Dunty Jr. 7 Alcohol, Retinoic Acid, and Cancer ..................................................... 127 Svetlana Radaeva 8 Alcohol, Altered Protein Homeostasis, and Cancer ............................ 155 András Orosz 9 Alcohol and the Inflammatory Function of Immune Cells in Cancer Development ......................................................................... 175 H. Joe Wang 10 Immune Surveillance and Tumor Evasion .......................................... 193 M. Katherine Jung vii viii Contents 11 Stem Cells and Alcohol-Related Cancers ............................................ 211 Zhigang (Peter) Gao and Q. Max Guo 12 Epilogue, Consensus Recommendations: Alcohol and Cancer.......... 225 Samir Zakhari Index ................................................................................................................ 233 About the Contributors Phillip J. Brooks, Ph.D Neurobiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1990 Postdoc: Rockefeller University Started at NIH: 1994 William C. Dunty, Jr., PhD Cell and Developmental Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002 Postdoc: National Cancer Institute Started at NIH: 2003 ix