Correlation study between the polymorphism of repetitive sequence in gene CAG of androgen receptor and the occurrence and progression of prostate cancer

Abstract

Objective: To explore the relation between the polymorphism of repetitive sequence in gene CAG of androgen receptor (AR) and the susceptibility and clinical stages as well as pathological grading of prostate cancer among Han population.

Method: Sixty-eight cases with prostate cancer hospitalized in Urinary Surgery Department from Feb. 2010 to Feb. 2012 and 60 healthy cases were chosen as research subjects. Methods of PCR and direct sequencing were adopted to detect DNA sequence of AR gene and the length of repetitive sequence in CAG.

Results: The lengths of repetitive sequence in CAG of patients with prostate cancer and healthy people were (22.3±4.6) and (23.0±4.9), respectively showing no statistical significance. Comparing length (repetitive sequence of CAG)>22, those with that < 22 suffer a remarkably higher risk of prostate cancer (P<0.05). The number of repetitive sequence in CAG of patients at clinical stage C-D was less than that of patients at stage B, and the number of repetitive sequence in CAG of patients with poorly differentiated prostate cancer was also less than that of patients with moderately and highly differentiated prostate cancer. But there was no statistical significance int the difference (P>0.05); the proportion of patients with length <22 at clinical stage C-D was much larger than that of patients at clinical stage B (P<0.05), and as the aggravation of pathological grading, the proportion of patients with the length <22 was also remarkably increased and there was significant difference between patients with highly differentiated prostate cancer and those with poorly differentiated prostate cancer (P<0.05).

Conclusions: There is correlation between the occurrence and development of prostate cancer in Han population and the polymorphism of repetitive sequence in gene CAG of androgen receptor. The less the number of repetitive sequence in CAG is, the higher the risk of prostate cancer will be and the more severe the clinical stage and pathological grading will be.

Keywords: Androgen receptor; Gene; Polymorphism of CAG; Prostate cancer.