Single nucleotide polymorphism ofmirna146a in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Abstract

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of cancer in children. The improvement of ALL therapy is one of the great successes with long-term survival achieved in over 80% of patients. However, the remaining cases cannot be cured and has poor prognosis. The molecular biology of ALL is not completely understood. Recently, it is discovered that miRNAs, small non coding RNAs, play a role in the regulation of hematopoiesis. They regulate cell growth, differentiation, and apoptosis. In addition, miRNAs are thought to play an important role in tumorigenesis. MiR146a G>C polymorphism can lead to alteration of miR146 expression, which appear to be associated with several cancer development and progression. This study aimed to investigate the association of miRNA146a (rs2910164) G>C polymorphism and susceptibility to childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and clinical outcomes. In this study 100 childhood ALL patients and 200 healthy children were studied for miR146a polymorphisms using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment-length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). The frequency of miR146a G allele in controls was 0.395 compared with 0.38 in ALL patients. There was no association between miRNA146a (rs2910164) G>C polymorphism and susceptibility to childhood ALL (OR=1.484, 95%CI=0.712-3.093, p=0.290). Moreover, the frequencies of miR146a (rs2910164) G>C polymorphism were not associated with demographic data and clinical outcomes in ALL cases. The miRNA146a polymorphisms were not significantly associated with susceptibility in Thai childhood ALL and clinico-pathological variables