Comprehensive assessment of association between TLR4 gene polymorphisms and cancer risk: a systematic meta-analysis

Previous studies have explored the association between toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) polymorphisms and risk of various cancers, but the results remained controversial. To obtain an assessment of the effect of TLR4 polymorphisms (rs4986790, rs4986791 and rs11536889) on cancer risk, fifty-five articles (containing 20107 cases and 28244 controls) were recruited for meta-analysis. Our result indicated that two Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) in TLR4 were associated with decreased cancer risk for rs4986791: OR = 0.764, 95% CI: 0.652-0.894, P = 0.001 in allele model; OR = 0.769, 95%CI: 0.650-0.909, P = 0.002 in recessive model; OR = 0.505, 95% CI: 0.352-0.726, P = 0.000 in dominant model; for 11536889: OR = 0.927, 95% CI: 0.872–0.984, P = 0.013 in allele model; OR = 0.926, 95% CI: 0.862–0.944,P = 0.034 in recessive model. In terms of subgroup analyses sorted by ethnicity, only polymorphism of rs4986791 had a significant influence on decrease of cancer risk among both Caucasian and Asian populations. The findings suggested that TLR4 polymorphisms may serve as a genetic risk factor for cancers.