Lack of associations between LIG3 gene polymorphisms and neuroblastoma susceptibility in Chinese children

Accumulating evidence suggests that dysregulation of the DNA non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) repair system is a causative factor in many cancers, including high-risk neuroblastoma. A number of studies have shown that polymorphisms in the DNA ligase III (LIG3) gene, one of the key genes in the error-prone alternative NHEJ (a-NHEJ) pathway for DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair, are associated with a variety of cancers. Nevertheless, whether LIG3 polymorphisms contribute to neuroblastoma risk remains unknown. We investigated the correlation between neuroblastoma susceptibility and two LIG3 polymorphisms (rs1052536 C>T and rs4796030 A>C) among 469 neuroblastoma patients and 998 healthy controls from China. Our results failed to detect any relationship between the analyzed SNPs and neuroblastoma risk in either overall analysis or stratification analysis. These results suggest that rs1052536 C>T and rs4796030 A>C are unrelated to neuroblastoma susceptibility in the Chinese population. Further studies with larger sample sizes and multiple ethnicities are necessary to verify our results.