Association of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 gene polymorphisms with cervical cancer in Chinese women.

Signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) plays an important role in regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Previous studies revealed that abnormal expression/activation of STAT family members were present in a large group of human malignant tumors. In the present study, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism, DNA sequencing, and Taqman probe real-time PCR techniques, we analyzed two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the STAT5B and STAT3 genes (rs6503691 and rs4769793, respectively) in 275 Chinese cervical cancer patients and 340 controls. Our results indicated that the genotype and allele frequencies of SNP rs4769793 were significantly different between the cervical cancer patients and normal subjects (p < 0.05, odds ratio = 1.35, 95% confidence interval = 1. 07-1.70). In addition, stratified analyses revealed that the polymorphism of rs4769793 was also associated with poor tumor differentiation and positive parametrial invasion (p < 0. 05). In contrast, SNP rs6503691 did not show any difference between patients and controls or association with patient clinical characteristics. Collectively, these findings suggested that STAT3 gene polymorphism (rs4769793) was associated with the susceptibility as well as poor differentiation and parametrial invasion of cervical cancer in Chinese women.