The highest risk of skin cancer occurs not in fair-skinned people who tan easily and are prone to sunburn, but in people with a particular mutation that normally tolerates sunburn and speeds up recovery from sunburn. Inna Kholandra, an employee of MyGenetics, told socialbites.ca about this.
Ultraviolet, a special type of solar radiation, can penetrate deep into the skin and cause DNA damage and the accumulation of mutations that lead to skin cancer. There are three main protective mechanisms against the appearance of a tumor: the production of a special melanin pigment, the restoration of DNA damaged by ultraviolet radiation, and the destruction of mutant cells with damaged DNA.
MyGenetics scientists found that 61% of people in the Russian population produce enough melanin. Therefore, they tan well and rarely burn in the sun. People with fair skin (34%) have reduced melanin production and an increased risk of sunburn and skin cancer. But the discomfort of sunburn causes them to change their behavior: use sunscreen and protective clothing. In this case, the risk of developing skin cancer will not be above the average. At the same time, people who normally tolerate sun exposure may neglect the use of sunscreen, which increases the risk of melanoma.
Cancer risk may be particularly high if there is a specific mutation in the XRCC1 gene that controls the repair rate of UV-damaged DNA. This is because DNA repair is often accompanied by errors, so getting rid of mutant cells is a more reliable way to protect against cancer. Therefore, it is important that DNA recovery after sunburn is moderate, not too fast – otherwise the mutant DNA will recover quickly (albeit with errors) and the body may not notice the cells that need to be destroyed. As scientists from MyGenetics discovered, 46% of Russians studied have moderate DNA damage repair from ultraviolet radiation and therefore have an average risk of developing skin cancer.
“We also found that 42% of Russians have an increased rate of DNA repair in UV-damaged skin cells. This means they recover quickly from sunburn, but because of this, a large number of cells with altered DNA in them survive, which increases the risk of melanoma and increases the aggressiveness of the tumor several times if it occurs. Here is such a serious charge for the rapid healing of sunburn after sunburn. In the Russian population there are only 12% of people with a low rate of DNA damage recovery from ultraviolet radiation, ”explained Kholandra.
“Therefore, it is very important to have a DNA test to know your degree of protection from ultraviolet radiation and to understand in principle how dangerous ultraviolet radiation, and in particular sunburn, is for you,” Holandra says.