Association of variants in estrogen-related pathway genes with prostate cancer risk

Through mediation of estrogen receptors, estradiol has been shown to have both carcinogenic and anti-carcinogenic effects on the prostate. We performed a population-based case-control study to investigate variants in estrogen-related genes ESR1, ESR2, CYP19A1, CYP1A1, and CYP1B1 and the potential association with risk of prostate cancer (PCa).

We evaluated PCa risk conferred by 73 single nucleotide polymorphisms in 1,304 incident PCa cases and 1,266 age-matched controls. Analysis included stratification by clinical features and assessment of environmental modifiers.

There was evidence of altered risk of developing PCa for variants in ESR1, CYP1A1, and CYP1B1, however, only CYP1B1 rs1056836 retained significance after adjustment for multiple comparisons. An association with risk for more aggressive PCa was observed for variants in ESR1, ESR2, and CYP19A1, but none was significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons. There was no effect modification by obesity.

Germline genetic variation of these estrogen pathway genes may contribute to risk of PCa. Additional studies to validate these results and examine the functional consequence of validated variants are warranted.