Association between polymorphisms in TP53 and MDM2 genes and susceptibility to prostate cancer.

Tumor protein 53 (), a tumor suppressor gene, is a vital cellular cancer suppressor in multicellular organisms. Murine double minute-2 (MDM2) is an oncoprotein that inhibits TP53 activity. A number of studies have examined the association of and polymorphisms with the risk of common forms of cancer, but the findings remain inconclusive. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of the 40-bp insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism (rs3730485) in the promoter region and the 16-bp I/D polymorphism (rs17878362) in on the susceptibility of prostate cancer (PCa) in a sample of the Iranian population. This case-control study included 103 patients with pathologically confirmed PCa and 142 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. The 40-bp I/D and 16-bp I/D polymorphism was determined using polymerase chain reaction analysis. The results demonstrated that the 40-bp I/D polymorphism increased the risk of PCa in a co-dominant inheritance model [odds ratio (OR)=1.88; 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.11-3.19; P=0.023, D/D vs. I/I], while this variant marginally increased the risk of PCa in a dominant model (OR=1.69; 95% CI=1.00-2.83; P=0.051, I/D+D/D vs. I/I). No significant association was observed between the 16-bp I/D polymorphism and PCa. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that the 40-bp I/D polymorphism in the promoter increased the risk of PCa in an Iranian population. Further investigations with diverse ethnicities and larger sample sizes are required to verify these results.