Rs4938723 Polymorphism Is Associated with Susceptibility to Hepatocellular Carcinoma Risk and Is a Protective Factor in Leukemia, Colorectal, and Esophageal Cancer

Abstract

BackgroundGrowing evidence indicates that a non-coding RNA named miR-34b/c plays crucial roles in carcinogenesis, and its common polymorphism, pri-miR-34b/c rs4938723, also participates in this process and is associated with cancer susceptibility. However, this association was previously undefined and ambiguous. Therefore, we carried out an updated analysis to evaluate this relationship between rs4938723 polymorphism and cancer susceptibility.Material/MethodsPubMed, EMbase, Web of Science and Chinese language (WanFang, CNKI and VIP) databases were searched for relevant studies until Sep 10, 2018. Odds ratios and 95% confidence interval were applied to assess this relationship.ResultsThirty case-control studies were retrieved. No positive association was found in either the overall study population or in the subgroups, based on ethnicity, source of group, sex, smoking, and drinking status. The main results were observed in the stratified analysis subgroups in cancer type subgroup: rs4938723 polymorphism may be a protective factor in leukemia, colorectal cancer, and esophageal cancer; however, C-allele was a risk factor in carriers for hepatocellular carcinoma. Last but not the least, poor positive results were discovered in the age subgroup.ConclusionsCurrent meta-analysis suggested that rs4938723 polymorphism was potentially associated with hepatocellular carcinoma risk, but this polymorphism had a decreased association for susceptibility to esophageal cancer, leukemia, and colorectal cancer. Furthermore, studies with larger sample sizes and including gene-gene or gene-environment interactions should be carried out to elucidate the role of rs4938723 polymorphism in cancer risk.

Prognostic impact of miR-34b/c DNA methylation, gene expression, and promoter polymorphism in HPV-negative oral squamous cell carcinomas

“…Although pre-miR-34b/c polymorphism was previously associated with increased risk in hepatocellular carcinoma 29 and, conversely, with a decreased predisposition to leukemia, colorectal, HNSCC 29 , 30 , and oral cancer 40 , our study did not confirm this. Studies with a larger sample size with the inclusion of gene–gene or gene–environment interactions should be carried out to further elucidate the role of miR-34b/c rs4938723 polymorphism in oral cancer risk.…”

“…Recent findings indicate that the expression of miR-34b is decreased in metastatic OSCC compared with nonmetastatic ones 28 , indicating that this microRNA could play an important role in the metastasis of OSCC. Moreover, genetic polymorphism rs4938723, located in the promoter of the pre-miR-34b/c gene, was previously associated with an increased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma 14 , but also with the decreased susceptibility to esophageal cancer, leukemia, and colorectal cancer 29 , 30 .…”

Association of miR-34b/c rs4938723 and TP53 Arg72Pro Polymorphisms with Neuroblastoma Susceptibility: Evidence from Seven Centers

“…Recently, two meta-analyses revealed that the roles of the miR-34b/c rs4938723 in cancer susceptibility are tissue dependent [20], [55]. The rs4938723 polymorphism was shown to significantly increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma but decreased the risk of developing esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, colorectal cancer, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.…”

Analysis of association of potentially functional genetic variants within genes encoding miR-34b/c, miR-378 and miR-143/145 with prostate cancer in Serbian population

“…Among the novel candidate genetic variants for the present study is rs4938723, which lies within the potential regulatory region of pri-miR-34b/c and is previously reported to be related to higher risk of PCa (Hashemi et al, 2017[ 14 ]). This potentially functional variant is associated with the risk of cervical, hepatocellular cancer (HCC), childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (AML), gastric cancer and esophageal squamose cell carcinoma (ESCC) (Xu et al, 2018[ 36 ]). Similarly, genetic variant rs1076064 which could affect the transcription and/or processing of pri-miR-378 is related to several types of cancer including breast cancer, renal cell cancer (RCC) and AML (Ding et al, 2018[ 9 ]).…”