Prevalence of disease-related DNA polymorphisms among participants in a large cancer prevention trial

Genetic susceptibility polymorphisms may be of substantial importance in th e modulation of cancer risk. The prevalence for an array of polymorphic gen es was determined in a cohort of male smokers who participated in a cancer prevention trial in Finland, A random sample of 120 individuals was selecte d from the trial cohort and the prevalence of variant alleles for nine gene s was determined using a polymerase chain reaction-based approach. The prev alence values from this study were also compared with those of other popula tions derived from previous studies. Our results show that, with the except ion of cytochrome P450-1A1 (CW1A1) and cytochrome P450-2E1 (CYP2E1), all ge nes tested were sufficiently polymorphic to warrant an investigation of gen e-environment studies. Most of the variant alleles, including alcohol dehyd rogenase 3 (ADH(3)), glutathiones-transferase (GSTM1), methionine synthase (MS), methylene tetrahydofolater reductase (MHTFR), CYP2E1 and CYP1A1, exhi bited similar frequencies to other Caucasian populations, Interestingly, th e prevalence of androgen receptor-GAG repeat (AR-CAG) and vitamin D recepto r (VDR) polymorphisms differed significantly between the alpha-trocopherol, beta-carotene (ATBC) Study and other Caucasian populations. We present her ein results from this survey and conclude that the ATBG study population in Finland is sufficiently heterogeneous to facilitate analysis of genetic po lymorphisms and disease associations. (C) 1999 Lippincott Williams & Wilkin s.