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| A SNP in the prohibitin gene may modify breast cancer susceptibility | |||||||||
| By Bijal
P. Trivedi May 21, 2001 |
The study, led by Eldon Jupe, of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, in Oklahoma City, tested 205 women with breast cancer and 1046 healthy controls for two variants—the C allele and the T allele—of prohibitin. Jupe's team found that women with a first-degree relative with breast cancer were more likely to carry the T allele. This association between the T allele and breast cancer was stronger in younger women who were diagnosed with the disease before age 50. Prohibitin, a tumor suppressor gene, is frequently altered in both familial and non-familial cases of breast cancer. In humans and animals, the C variant of the prohibitin protein functions in concert with other proteins to prevent mutated cells from proliferating. In the T variant the tumor suppressing activity has been lost. "Because the prohibitin T allele is common and the assay is simple and inexpensive to do, prohibitin genotyping has the potential to be an effective screening tool for determining breast cancer-risk in women with first-degree relatives with the disease," write the scientists in the current issue of The Lancet. . . .
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variation located close to the protein-coding region of the prohibitin
gene has been associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in younger
women who have at least one first-degree relative with the disease.