Genetic variants of CYP19 (aromatase) and breast cancer risk

Full text

The effect of an SNP in exon 10 of CYP19 on tumour mRNA levels and splice variants was studied and correlated with clinical parameters and risk of breast cancer. In the vast majority of breast cancers, the estrogen levels modulate the tumour growth and depend on the activity of CYP19. Patients (n =481) and controls (n =236) were genotyped by T-tracks in a single sequencing reaction (SSR). The frequency of TT genotypes was significantly higher in patients versus controls (P =0.007) particularly among those with stage III and IV disease (P =0.004) and with tumours larger than 5 cm (P =0.001). A significant association between presence of the T allele and the level of aromatase mRNA in the tumours was observed (P =0.018), as well as with a switch from adipose promoter to ovary promoter (P =0.004). Previously, we reported a rare polymorphic allele of CYP19 (repeat (TTTA)₁₂) to be significantly more frequent in breast cancer patients than in controls. Here we describe another polymorphism, a C-T substitution in exon 10 of the CYP19 gene which is in strong linkage disequilibrium with the (TTTA)_n polymorphism but with higher frequency of the variant allele. Our data suggest that the T-allele of the CYP19 gene is associated with a `high activity' phenotype.