The Effect of Polymorphism and Human Papilomavirus on Esophageal Cancer

The p53 gene is one of the most extensively studied human genes because of its role as a tumor suppressor. A common polymorphism of the p53 gene at codon 72 has been associated with human cancer susceptibility and prognosis. Human papilloma virus (HPV) has also been suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of esophageal cancers. In this study, we investigated codon 72 polymorphism in 40 esophagus cancer cases and 40 control samples in northern Iran. AS-PCR method was applied for determination of codon 72 polymorphism in the way that two pairs of primers have been used for identifying allels arginine and proline. Distribution of genotypes in esophagus cancer cases and controls were different (P=0.001). From 40 patients, 4 (%10) cases have been homozygote Arg/Arg, 22 (%55) cases have been heterozygote Arg/pro and 14 (%35) cases have been homozygote prolin. In none of the samples the HPV virus was observed that is in harmony with genotype results. In conclusion, this result can be considered as a probable reason in observing difference in frequency of different genotypes codon 72 in geographical regions.