Specific TaqMan allelic discrimination assay for rs1477196 and rs9939609 single nucleotide polymorphisms of FTO gene demonstrated that there is no association between these SNPs and risk of breast cancer in Iranian women

Breast cancer (BC), is the most common cancer in women, that is the major cause of cancerrelated morbidity and mortality in women. Obesity is considered as a major risk factor for BC that increases both the rate and intensity of the disease. Polymorphisms in FTO gene, a known obesity related gene, is shown to be associated with obesity-related traits as well. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between previously reported single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of intron 1of FTO gene, rs1477196 and rs9939609 and risk of BC in a subset of Iranian BC patients.

We genotyped 99 cases and 100 controls for the two SNPs of rs9939609 and rs1477196 by TaqMan allelic discrimination assay. For each sample in an allelic discrimination assay, a unique pair of fluorescent dye probe is used. One fluorescent dye probe has a perfect match with the wild type allele and the other fluorescent dye probe is perfectly matched to the mutated allele.

Our research has shown that the observed differences between case and control groups in the studied SNPs of FTO gene are not statistically significant (P > 0.05).

Our findings suggest that there is no association between rs9939609 and rs1477196 polymorphisms in FTO gene and increase in risk of BC in the studied Iranian population. These results were inconsistent with that of previously reported case–control studies with BC that means presence of these polymorphisms depends on ethnic group.