The p53 Arg72Pro polymorphism, human papillomavirus, and invasive squamouscell cervical cancer

A. Storey et al, [Nature (Lond,), 393: 229-234, 1998)] reported a 7-fold in creased risk of cervical cancer associated with having an Arg/Arg polymorph ism at codon 72 of p53 compared with the Pro/Arg heterozygotes (odds ratio, 7.4; 95% confidence interval, 2.1-29,4), Complementary in vitro studies su ggested that the HPV E6 oncoprotein more readily targets the arginine form, as opposed to the proline form, of p53 for degradation. We investigated th e impact of this polymorphism in a population-based case-control study of i nvasive cervical cancer. Using a PCR assay to detect the p53 codon 72 polym orphism, we tested blood samples from 111 women with invasive squamous cell cancer of the cervix identified by a population-based registry and 164 ran dom-digit telephone-dialed controls. The distribution of the genotype among control women was 38% heterozygous, 7% proline homozygous, and 55% arginin e homozygous, and among the cases was 38%, 6%, and 56%, respectively. There was no increased risk of squamous cell invasive cervical cancer associated with homozygosity for the arginine allele (odds ratio, 1.0; 95% confidence interval, 0,6-1,7), Furthermore, there was no modification of this result by human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA status of the tumor, age, or smoking stat us. Among controls, there was no association between the polymorphism and H PV-16 L1 seropositivity, However, among case subjects, the codon 72 polymor phism may be related to HPV 16L1 seropositivity status.