Study Of P21～(WAF1/Cip1) Gene Polymorphisms In The Susceptibility Of Esophageal Cancer In China

Anyang area in He Nan province has the highest incidence of esophageal cancer. HPV-16 plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of esophageal carcinoma and the p53 codon72 arg homozygous genotype is one of the high risk factor of HPV-associated esophageal cancer in Anyang area.In order to investigate the possible role of p2lWAF1/cip1 in the susceptibility of human esophageal cancer in high-incidence area, we performed PCR-DHPLC (Denaturing high performance liquid chromatography) analysis and direct sequencing of the coding region of this gene in four populations include 127 "normal individuals" from the Anyang high-incidence area, 41 esophageal cancer patients in Anyang, 42 esophageal cancer patients from Beijing and 78 healthy controls from Beijing normal population. The status of codon 31 were confirmed by restriction analysis and direct sequencing. Our analysis revealed a AGC→ AGA (Ser→Arg) polymorphism at codon 31 with a genotype frequency between 61.9%- 73.2% in these four populations. Although the frequency of the polymorphism was higher than that on other reports, our result revealed no significant difference among the groups we tested. None of these samples in any groups showed polymorphism at codon 149 of p21WAF1/cip1 Qur data indicate that the polymorphism at codon 31 and 149 of p2lWAF1/Cip1 is probably not involved in the susceptibility of human esophageal cancer in China.