Single Nucleotide Polymorphism of the JWA Gene is Associated with Risk of Leukemia: A Case-Control Study in a Chinese Population

Abstract

The JWA gene was initially cloned as a novel cell differentiation-associated gene and was subsequently found to be an environmental responsive gene. The JWA gene also produced a marked effect during chemical-induced multidirectional differentiations of primary and human myeloid leukemia cells. Recently, a novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in exon2 of the JWA gene (454C→A) was identified that may play a role in risk of bladder cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the 454C→A (NM_006407.2) in JWA exon2 variants and risk of leukemia in a hospital-based case-control study of 202 leukemia patients and 289 cancer-free controls. Results indicated that 454A allele was found to associate with significantly increased risk of leukemia, although the 454C→A is a synonymous polymorphism in coding region of the JWA gene. In conclusion, the potentially functional genetic polymorphism 454C→A of the JWA gene appears to contribute to the risk of multiple kinds of leukemia in a south Chinese population.

This work was partially supported by the following grants: the National Key Basic Research and Development Project (973 Project), China (grant 2002CB512900); National Natural Science Foundation of China (30170812, 30471430); the Foundation of High-Tech Key Projects, Education Department, Jiangsu Province, China (JH01-049); and the National Postgraduate Training Program Foundation (20040312008).