Genetic variants of m7G modification genes influence neuroblastoma susceptibility.

OBJECTIVE

Neuroblastoma is a life-threatening pediatric solid tumor whose etiology remains unclear. N7-methylguanosine (m7G) is one of the most important epigenetic modifications of RNA, which plays a crucial role in tumorigenesis. The m7G-mediated genes and also have been reported to be dysregulated in various cancers. However, the implications of and in neuroblastoma have not been clarified.

METHODS

Given the oncogenic potential of m7G modification, we performed a case-control study to assess the association of and genes polymorphisms with neuroblastoma risk in a Chinese population consisting of 402 cases and 473 controls. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were applied to evaluate the associations between studied polymorphisms and neuroblastoma risk. The adjusted odds ratio (AOR) was adjusted for age and gender.

RESULTS

Overall, four polymorphisms were significantly associated with neuroblastoma risk, including rs2291617 (recessive model: adjusted OR = 1.59, 95 % CI = 1.08-2.34,  = 0.019), rs2156316 (dominant model: adjusted OR = 0.74, 95 % CI = 0.57-0.97,  = 0.028), rs6586250 (dominant model: adjusted OR = 0.59, 95 % CI = 0.42-0.84,  = 0.004) and rs15736 (dominant model: adjusted OR = 0.60, 95 % CI = 0.42-0.85,  = 0.004). Stratified analysis showed stronger correlations between significant polymorphisms and neuroblastoma risk among subgroups divided by age, gender, tumor origin, and clinical stage. Furthermore, expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis revealed that significant polymorphisms were associated with the expression of the adjacent genes.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study indicated that four polymorphisms in m7G-mediated genes contribute to neuroblastoma susceptibility in the eastern Chinese population. However, our findings should be verified further by large-scale and well-designed studies.