MiR-196a2 rs11614913 T > C polymorphism and risk of esophageal cancer in a Chinese population.

BACKGROUND: Esophageal cancer is the eighth most common cancer and sixth leading cause of cancer associated death worldwide. Besides environmental risk factors, genetic factors might play an important role in the esophageal cancer carcinogenesis.

METHODS: We conducted a hospital based case-control study to evaluate the genetic susceptibility of functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the microRNAs on the development of esophageal cancer. A total of 380 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) cases and 380 controls were recruited for this study. The miR-196a2 rs11614913 T > C, miR-146a rs2910164 C > G, miR-499 rs3746444 T > C, miR-26a-1 rs7372209 C > T and miR-27a rs895819 T > C genotypes were determined using a custom-by-design 48-Plex SNPscan™ Kit and matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS).

RESULTS: MiR-196a2 rs11614913 T > C polymorphism was associated with borderline statistically decreased risk of ESCC. In the recessive model, when the miR-196a2 rs11614913 TT/TC genotypes were used as the reference group, the CC homozygote genotype was associated with a borderline statistically decreased risk for ESCC (adjusted OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.50-1.03, p = 0.070). In stratification analyses, a significantly decreased risk of ESCC associated with the miR-196a2 rs11614913 T > C polymorphism was evident among women patients and patients who never smoking or drinking.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicated that functional polymorphism miR-196a2 rs11614913 T > C might contribute to decreased ESCC risk among women patients and patients who never smoking or drinking. However, our results were obtained with a limited sample size. Future larger studies with other ethnic populations and tissue-specific biological characterization are required to confirm current findings.