Relationship between the TERT, TNIP1 and OBFC1 genetic polymorphisms and susceptibility to colorectal cancer in Chinese Han population

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common diseases worldwide, and telomere length has been reported correlate with CRC. This study aimed to investigate whether polymorphisms of telomere length related genes are associated with susceptibility to CRC in Chinese Han population. 11 SNPs from TERT, TNIP1 and OBFC1 genes were selected and genotyped, in addition odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to evaluate association between the SNPs and CRC risk in 247 patients clinically and 300 controls in a Chinese Han population. Our results showed that minor allele “G” of rs7708392 and minor allele “C” of rs10036748 in TNIP1 gene were significantly associated with an increased the CRC risk in genotype model, dominant model and additive model after Bonferroni's multiple adjusted (P<0.0011). Moreover, the two SNPs rs7708392 and rs10036748 were in strong linkage disequilibrium. We observed that the haplotype “G-C” was more frequent among CRC patients and associated with a 1.58-fold increased CRC risk (95%CI=1.17-2.13, P=0.003). Contrarily, haplotype “C-T” was associated with a 0.63-fold reduced CRC risk (95%CI=0.47-0.86, P=0.003). Additionally, SNPs in this study except rs7708392 and rs10036748 were found a modest connection with CRC risk. In conclusion, our study firstly provides evidence for a novel association between polymorphisms of telomere length related TNIP1 gene and CRC susceptibility in Chinese Han population, and the results need a further identification in a large sample size and other populations.