Chemical carcinogens
Large geographical and temporal differences in cancer incidence indicate that the causes of the majority of cases are a consequence of environmental and lifestyle factors. While many of these remain unknown, around half have known causes, and these include chemicals in air, water, and food, as well as products of industrial processes and of combustion. The major classes of chemical carcinogens and how they were discovered are described. A property shared by many of them is that they, or one or more of their metabolites, are electrophiles that can damage DNA in mammalian cells, leading to cellular responses including DNA repair, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, mutagenesis, and malignant transformation. Methods for predicting the carcinogenicity of new chemicals are part of the regulatory processes for safety assessment, and sensitive methods for monitoring human exposure to carcinogens provide insight into the aetiology of cancer. The mutational signatures that genotoxic carcinogens leave in the tumours they induce provide evidence of the chemicals that have caused them, and the approach has promise for shedding light on the many as-yet-unidentified cases of cancer worldwide.