p53 codon 72 polymorphism and HPV status in lung cancer

Several risk factors, both environmental and genetic, have been associated with the pathogenesis of lung cancer. A common polymorphism at codon 72 of exon 4 of the p53 gene encoding either an arginine or proline has been shown to confer susceptibility to the development of different human malignancies. This polymorphism affects proteolytic degradation of p53 promoted by the HPV-E6 protein and represents a risk factor for human-papillomavirus-induced carcinogenesis.

A total of 65 patients with lung cancer were recruited into the study and 87 healthy subjects were used as the control group. The codon 72 polymorphism was determined by the PCR-RFLP method. Presence of human papillomavirus DNA was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction using MY09 and MY11 consensus primers and hybridization with HPV16 and HPV18 specific probes.

The frequencies of the Arg and Pro alleles were 68.46% and 31.54% in lung cancer patients and 55.7% and 44.3% in the healthy control subjects, respectively. These differences were statistically significant. Human papillomavirus DNA was detected in the blood circulation of only 1 patient.

Our results suggest that the Arg/Arg genotype may represent a potential risk factor for the development of lung cancer independent of the HPV infection.