Association between two genetic variants of CD226 gene and Cervical Squamous Cell Carcinoma: a case-control study.

Cervical carcinoma is a common gynecologic tumor severely influencing the health and life quality of women worldwide. CD226, a costimulatory molecule, is mainly participated in the activation and differentiation of T cells. Recent studies have investigated the association between two genetic variants (rs763361 and rs727088) of CD226 gene and many diseases. In order to evaluate whether these two variants are associated with Cervical Squamous Cell Carcinoma (CSCC), a case-control study including 349 CSCC patients and 380 unrelated healthy controls was carried out to determine the genotypes of these two variants by using the methods of polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and DNA sequencing methods. Significantly increased CSCC risk was observed to be associated with G allele of rs727088 locus (OR=1.422, 95% CI=1.129-1.792). We have also observed that increased CSCC risk was statistically associated with rs727088 polymorphism in a dominant model (OR=1.41, 95% CI=1.05-1.89). Results of stratified analysis revealed that both rs763361 and rs727088 polymorphisms were not associated with clinical characters. Collectively, this study supports that rs727088 polymorphism may contribute to increased CSCC susceptibility.