tp53 codon 72 polymorphism and p53 protein expression in colorectal cancer specimens in isfahan

the tp53 tumor suppressor gene plays important roles in genomic stability. a common polymorphism at codon 72 of tp53 gene has been associated with increased risk for many human cancers. the p53 protein is expressed in colorectal cancer, but the reported prevalence of its expression varies widely. in the present study, the p53 protein expression in different genotypes of its codon 72 , was investigated. we undertook a case-control study on 250 controls and 250 paraffin block specimens of sporadic colorectal adenocarcinomas from the city of isfahan. pcr amplification of tp53 codon 72 polymorphism: tp53 codon 72 genotypes were detected by pcr using specific primer pairs for amplifying the proline or the arginine alleles. the pcr reaction was done separately for each of the two polymorphic variants. the amplified products were subjected to electrophoresis on 1% agarose gel in 1× tbe buffer and visualized on a transilluminator using ethidium bromide. immunohistochemical staining: we evaluated the expression patterns of p53 protein, as potential prognostic marker in colorectal cancer specimens by immunohistochemical staining. statistical analyses: the χ2-test was used to assess the significance of any difference in the prevalence of tp53 codon 72 polymorphism between colorectal cancer patients and controls. the odds ratio and 95% ci (confidence intervals) was used as a measure of the strength of the association. statistical significance level was set to p≤0.05. in control samples, the genotype distribution for tp53 polymorphism showed 30.4%, 45.2% and 24.4% for the arginine/arginine, arginine/proline and proline/proline genotypes, respectively. allelic frequencies corresponded to 0.663 for the arginine allele and 0.338 for the proline allele. in the cancer group 38.8% of the cases were arginine/arginine, 40.4% were arginine/proline and 20.8% were proline/proline. the corresponding frequencies were 0.590 for the arginine allele and 0.410 for the proline allele. a significant difference between cases and controls was found for the arginine/arginine genotype compared with (grouped) arginine/proline and proline/proline genotypes (odds ratio = 1.451 (1.002-2.103), p=0.048). overexpression of p53 was observed in 50.8 percent of cancer specimens which most of them were arginine/arginine genotype (p