UROKINASE RECEPTOR GENOTYPES IN COLORECTAL-CANCER

A previous study has reported a high frequency of rare alleles of the urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) in a set of 15 co lorectal cancer (CRC) cell lines. Our study investigated uPAR gene var iation in 92 CRC patients and in tumour DNA from a subset of 69 patien ts using the PLAUR-IVS3 marker located in an intron of this gene. The overall distribution of the marker alleles in the patients did not dif fer significantly from a set of 10(5) controls. A pairwise analysis of individual allele frequencies showed, however, that the common allele 147 was significantly decreased (P = 0.027) and allele 149 was signif icantly increased (P = 0.033) in the patients. These results may indic ate an effect of uPAR gene variation in CRC carcinogenesis and encoura ges further examination of this marker in an independent series of pat ients.