Affiliations: Department of Urology, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow-226014, India
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Dr. Rama Devi Mittal, Additional Professor, Department of Urology, SGPGIMS, Raebareli Road, Lucknow-226014, India. Tel.: +91 522 2668004 8, Ext. 2116; Fax: +91 522 2668 017; E-mail: rmittal@sgpgi.ac.in, ramamittal@yahoo.com.
Abstract: Urokinase gene is believed to play a key role in tissue degradation and cell migration under various normal and pathological conditions, including cancer invasion and metastasis. It may be responsible in the development of prostate cancer (CaP), although there is lack of genetic evidence. Our aim was to study single nucleotide polymorphism (C/T) in 3'-untranslated region to investigate the possibility. DNA was extracted from blood samples of 103 CaP patients and 107 normal controls. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based restriction analysis was used to identify the C/T polymorphism of the urokinase gene. Significant difference in the frequency distribution of CT and TT genotypes in CaP patients as compared to normal was observed (p=0.04). Two folds risk for prostate cancer with T alleles in north Indian population was apparent. We also observed significant association for TT genotypes with higher Gleason score of tumors in CaP patients (p<0.05). A positive association was also evident in tobacco users having T alleles with risk of CaP. Our findings demonstrated a positive association of T allele of 3'UTR of urokinase gene with the risk of prostate cancer. We therefore hypothesize that C/T polymorphism may influence the etiology of CaP and is likely to become another new marker.
Keywords: Urokinase, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), prostate cancer (CaP)
