Potentially Functional Polymorphisms inPOU5F1Gene Are Associated with the Risk of Lung Cancer in Han Chinese

Abstract

POU5F1 is a key regulator of self-renewal and differentiation in embryonic stem cells and may be associated with initiation, promotion, and progression in cancer. We hypothesized that functional polymorphisms inPOU5F1may play an important role in modifying the lung cancer risk. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a case-control study to explore the association between 17 potentially functional SNPs inPOU5F1gene and the lung cancer risk in 1,341 incident lung cancer cases and 1,982 healthy controls in a Chinese population. We found that variant alleles of rs887468 and rs3130457 were significantly associated with increased risk of lung cancer after multiple comparison (OR = 1.29, 95% CI: 1.11–1.51,Pfdr=0.017for rs887468; OR = 1.29, 95% CI: 1.10–1.51,Pfdr=0.034for rs3130457, resp.). In addition, we detected a significant interaction between rs887468 genotypes and smoking status on lung cancer risk (P=0.017). Combined analysis of these 2 SNPs showed a significant allele-dosage association between the number of risk alleles and increased risk of lung cancer (Ptrend<0.001). These findings indicate that potentially functional polymorphisms inPOU5F1gene may contribute to lung cancer susceptibility in a Chinese population.