Background: The present study aimed to evaluate the role of functional polymorphisms of apoptosis-associated Fatty acid synthase (FAS) and fatty acid synthase ligand (FASL) genes in bladder cancer susceptibility as first presentation in a Turkish population.
Patients and methods: Genotypes of 91 patients with bladder cancer and 101 healthy controls were evaluated for the polymorphism of FAS-1377 G/A and FASL-844 T/C genes by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis.
Results: The frequency of the FAS-1377 G allele was significantly higher in patients with bladder cancer compared to controls (p<0.001). A significantly increased risk for developing bladder cancer was found for the group bearing a T allele for FASL-844 compared to the homozygous FASL-844 CC genotype (p=0.027). FAS-1377 GG genotype and FASL-844 T allele were found to be independently associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer. Additionally, gene-gene interaction analysis revealed that the frequency of FAS-1377AA with FASL-844TC was significantly lower in patients with bladder cancer in comparison to those of controls (p<0.001). Extensive studies for gene-gene interaction are still needed.
Conclusion: Our study provides new evidence that FAS-1377 G and FASL-844 T alleles may be used as low-penetrant risk factors for bladder cancer development in a Turkish population.
Keywords: Apoptosis; FAS; FAS ligand; bladder cancer; polymorphism.