Associations between polymorphisms of long non-coding RNA MEG3 and risk of colorectal cancer in Chinese

Maternally expressed gene 3 (MEG3), a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), is involved in cancer development and metastasis. The objective of the present study was to evaluate whether common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in MEG3 could be related with colorectal cancer risk in Chinese. We genotyped six tagSNPs of MEG3 in a colorectal cancer case-control study including 518 cases and 527 control subjects. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied to calculate adjusted odds ratios (ORs). We found that MEG3 rs7158663 AA genotype, but not GA genotype, had significant increased colorectal cancer risk, compared with GG genotype (OR = 1.96 and P = 0.006 for AA versus GG, and OR = 1.20 and P = 0.171 for GA versus GG). Further stratified analysis indicated that the increased risk was significantly correlated with individuals with age ≤ 60 and family history of cancer. However, there was no significant association between rs7158663 and colorectal tumor site and stage (P = 0.842 for tumor site, and P = 0.601 for tumor stage). These results demonstrate that genetic variants in MEG3 may contribute to the development and risk of colorectal cancer. Further studies are required to confirm these findings.