An aromatic DNA adduct in colonic mucosa from patients with colorectal cancer.

The incidence of colorectal cancer in the western hemisphere is though to be the result, in part, of environmental agents, and many studies strongly implicate diet as a determining factor. It is conceivable that the ingestion of genotoxic chemicals present in food or the endogenous formation of such substances in the gut may initiate colorectal cancer in humans. In the present study, 32P-postlabelling has been used to examine DNA from normal-appearing colonic mucosa obtained from (i) patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer and (ii) adult and fetal controls for the presence of aromatic DNA adducts.