BACKGROUND: We previously found that inflammation in benign prostate tissue is associated with an increased odds of prostate cancer, especially higher-grade disease. Since part of this link may be due to genetics, we evaluated the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in immune response genes and prostate cancer in the placebo arm of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial.
METHODS: We genotyped 16 candidate SNPs in IL1β, IL2, IL4, IL6, IL8, IL10, IL12(p40), IFNG, MSR1, RNASEL, TLR4, and TNFA and seven tagSNPs in IL10 in 881 prostate cancer cases and 848 controls negative for cancer on an end-of-study biopsy. Cases and controls were non-Hispanic white and frequency matched on age and family history. We classified cases as lower (Gleason sum <7; N = 674) and higher (7-10; N = 172) grade, and used logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) adjusting for age and family history.
RESULTS: The minor allele (C) of rs3212227 in IL12(p40) was associated with an increased risk of total (log additive: OR = 1.30, 95%CI 1.10-1.53; P-trend = 0.0017) and lower-grade (OR = 1.36, 95%CI 1.15-1.62; P-trend = 0.0004) prostate cancer. The minor allele (A) of rs4073 in IL8 was possibly associated with a decreased risk of higher-grade (OR = 0.81, 95%CI 0.64-1.02; P-trend = 0.07), but not total disease. None of the other candidates was associated with risk. The minor alleles of IL10 tagSNPs rs1800890 (A; OR = 0.87, 95%CI: 0.75-0.99; P-trend = 0.04) and rs3021094 (C; OR = 1.31, 95%CI 1.03-1.66, P-trend = 0.03) were associated with risk; the latter also with lower- (P-trend = 0.04) and possibly higher- (P-trend = 0.06) grade disease. These patterns were similar among men with PSA
CONCLUSION: Variation in some immune response genes may be associated with prostate cancer risk. These associations were not fully explained by PSA-associated detection bias. Our findings generally support the role of inflammation in the etiology of prostate cancer.
Prostate. 2015 Jun 5. doi: 10.1002/pros.23021. [Epub ahead of print]
Winchester DA1, Till C2, Goodman PJ2, Tangen CM2, Santella RM3, Johnson-Pais TL4, Leach RJ4, Xu J5, Zheng SL5,6, Thompson IM4, Lucia MS7, Lippmann SM8, Parnes HL9, Dluzniewski PJ1, Isaacs WB10,11, De Marzo AM10,11,12, Drake CG10,11,13, Platz EA1,10,11.
1 Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.
2 SWOG Statistical Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington.
3 Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York.
4 Department of Urology, University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas.
5 Program for Personalized Cancer Care and Department of Surgery, NorthShore University Health System, Evanston, Illinois.
6 Center for Cancer Genomics, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
7 Department of Pathology, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado.
8 Moores Cancer Center, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California.
9 Prostate and Urologic Cancer Research Group, Division of CancerPrevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
10 Department of Urology, and James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
11 Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, Maryland.
12 Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
13 Department of Immunology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.