Association between miRNA-146a polymorphism and lung cancer susceptibility: A meta-analysis involving 6506 cases and...

We sought to analyze the association between miR-146a rs2910164 G > C polymorphism and susceptibility to lung cancer using a meta-analysis of case-control studies.

We systematically searched for studies reporting on the relationship between miR-146a rs2910164 polymorphism and the risk of lung cancer in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. We then calculated pooled odds ratios (ORs), at 95% confidence interval (CI) to assess the aforementioned relationship. All the data were analyzed using statistical packages implemented in R version 3.6.2 (R Project for Statistical Computing), run in RStudio version 1.2.5033.

A total of fifteen studies, comprising 6506 cases and 6576 controls, were enrolled in this meta-analysis. Significant associations were observed between miR-146a rs2910164 polymorphism and the risk of lung cancer based on overall pooled subjects under the allele, heterozygous, homozygous, dominant, and recessive genetic models (C vs. G: OR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.12-1.44; GC vs. GG: OR = 1.23, 95% CI: 1.03-1.46; CC vs. GG: OR = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.18-1.93; GC + CC vs. GG: OR = 1.33, 95% CI: 1.10-1.61; CC vs. GG + GC: OR = 1.32, 95% CI: 1.13-1.53). Ethnicity-based subgroup analyses revealed no statistically significant differences in Asians using heterozygous and dominant genetic models.

miR-146a rs2910164 G > C polymorphism may be a risk factor of lung cancer. Asian populations exhibiting heterozygous and dominant genotypes need to be further investigated to validate our findings.