Background: Findings of recent studies have demonstrated a rapid increase of the incidence of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), which accounts for nearly 80% of thyroid cancers.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the association between AXIN2 gene polymorphism and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC).
Patients and methods: 106 blood samples (56 PTC patients and 50 healthy controls) were drawn from China-Japan Union Hospital in Jilin province, China, during October 2010 to March 2011. A case-control study was designed to examine the association between AXIN2 and PTC. Seven tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (tag SNPs) in AXIN2 were selected and genotyped. Frequencies of different genotypes and alleles were analyzed between the patients and the controls, using the R × C column contingency table χ(2) test. The possible association of haplotypes constructed by the combined effects of two or more loci with PTC was analyzed through the UNPHASED 3.1.4 program.
Results: Rs11655966, rs3923086 and rs7591 of AXIN2 showed significant associations with PTC (P < 0.05). The result of haplotypes analysis showed that rs11655966-rs3923086-rs4791169 had statistically significant differences between the two groups (P < 0.05).
Conclusions: Together with the functions of the target genes, we further elucidated that AXIN2 is associated with papillary thyroid carcinoma in the Chinese Han population.
Keywords: AXIN2; Papillary; Polymorphism; Single Nucleotide; Thyroid Cancer.