Association of p53 Arg/Pro Polymorphism at Codon 72 with Risk of Breast Cancer in East Azerbaijani Women

Breast cancer is most common cancer among women in the world and one third women affected by this cancer. P53 gene is one of the most important tumor suppressor genes. Investigations show G to C polymorphism at codon 72 of p53 gene, is associated with the increasing of cancer, and perhaps it can be regarded as a predisposing marker for breast cancer. This study was done to assess the association of p53 Arg/Pro polymorphism at codon 72 with risk of breast cancer in women. This case-control study was conducted on 126 patients with invasive and insitu, as well as 99 control individuals as controls from Tabriz hospitals, DNA extraction was conducted using proteinase K method, different genotype of codon 72 of gene p53 were determined using allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and direct DNA sequencing and compared. In the control group, the genotype distribution of p53 polymorphism, showed 30.3%, 50.5% and 19.2% for the Arg/Arg, Arg/Pro, Pro/Pro Genotypes, respectively. In the cancer group, the distribution was 44.4%, 34.9% and 20.6% for the Arg/Arg, Arg/Pro and Pro/Pro genotypes, respectively. Distribution differences in the p53 codon 72 polymorphism between the cases and controls were statistically significant (p<0.05). This study indicates that p53 codon polymorphism is a genetic predisposing factor for breast cancer in East Azerbijan’s women. However, further studies are needed to determine the role of p53 codon 72 polymorphism in breast cancer.