PREDICTIVE TOXICOGENOMICS FOR CANCER RISK ASSESSMENT NAPOVEDNA TOKSIKOGENOMIKA IN OCENA TVEGANJA ZA NASTANEK RAKA

Every organism, and therefore also humans, is the product of its genes in combination with its environment. The activity of genes is strictly regulated and is continuously liable to changes. The response of an organism to changes in its environment, such as the exposure to a toxic substance, leads to altered gene expressions. Analysing modified gene expression profiles as a result of exposure to chemical substances, can therefore aid to determine the hazardous properties of those substances, such as on carcinogenic capacity. This toxicoge- nomics approach also provides the possibility to drastically reduce the traditional animal tests. Vsak organizem, tudi človeški, je produkt delovanja lastnih genov v kombinaciji z dejavni- ki okolja. Aktivnost genov je strogo uravnavana in nenehno podvržena spremembam. Organizem se na spremembe v svojem okolju, na primer na izpostavljenost toksičnim snovem, odzove s spremembami v izražanju genov. Z analizo sprememb v izražanju gen- ov, ki so posledica izpostavljenosti kemičnim snovem, lahko določamo škodljive učinke teh snovi, kot je npr. stopnja kancerogenosti. S takim toksikogenomskim pristopom lahko bistveno zmanjšamo uporabo tradicionalnih testov na živalih.