MicroRNA gene polymorphisms in pancreatic cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) act as regulators of gene expression via translational repression. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in miRNAs have been shown to affect the regulatory capacity of miRNAs by influencing miRNA processing and/or miRNA-mRNA interactions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between 2 SNPs commonly found in precursor miRNA and the susceptibility and clinicopathological characteristics of pancreatic cancer. The rs11614913/miR-196a2, rs2910164/miR-146a SNPs were genotyped in 93 patients with pancreatic cancer and in 122 healthy controls. No significant differences in genotype distributions between controls and PC patients were observed. However, rs2910164 GG and rs11614913 CC genotypes and the rs2910164C/rs11614913C and rs2910164G/rs11614913C haplotypes were significantly overrepresented in PC patients with T1 and T2 tumor status than in those with T3 and T4. Our findings suggested that the rs2910164 and rs11614913 SNPs might play a role in pancreatic tumorigenesis, but the molecular mechanism underlying the particular sequence variations in miRNA that can cause aberrant expression remains to be determined.