8q24 sequence variants in relation to prostate cancer risk among men of African descent: a case-control study

Human chromosome 8q24 has been implicated in prostate tumorigenesis.

Consequently, we evaluated seven 8q24 sequence variants relative to prostate cancer (PCA) in a case-control study involving men of African descent. Genetic alterations were detected in germ-line DNA from 195 incident PCA cases and 531 controls using TaqMan polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

Inheritance of the 8q24 rs16901979 T allele corresponded to a 2.5-fold increase in the risk of developing PCA for our test group. These findings were validated using multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) and permutation testing (p = 0.038). The remaining 8q24 targets were not significantly related to PCA outcomes.

Although compelling evidence suggests that the 8q24 rs16901979 locus may serve as an effective PCA predictor, our findings require additional evaluation in larger studies.