Associations between WTAP gene polymorphisms and neuroblastoma susceptibility in Chinese children

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have revealed that WTAP is related to multiple types of cancer. Recently, WTAP has been reported as an independent prognostic factor in patients with neuroblastoma. METHODS: To explore the association between three WTAP polymorphisms (rs9457712 G>A, rs1853259 A>G and rs7766006 G>T) and neuroblastoma susceptibility in Chinese populations, we performed this case-control study including 898 neuroblastoma cases and 1,734 controls. We genotyped these potentially functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) by TaqMan assays. The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) by logistic regression models were used to assess the relationship between WTAP SNPs and the risk of neuroblastoma. RESULTS: No significant associations were observed in the overall analysis between any of the three WTAP polymorphisms and the risk of neuroblastoma. However, in the age ≤18 months subgroup, we found that the rs1853259 AG/GG genotype exerted protective effects against neuroblastoma (adjusted OR =0.77, 95% CI: 0.59–0.998, P=0.048), whereas the presence of 1–2 combined risk genotypes significantly increased the risk of neuroblastoma (adjusted OR =1.32, 95% CI: 1.02–1.71, P=0.036). CONCLUSIONS: WTAP gene polymorphisms only have a weak impact on the risk of neuroblastoma in the Chinese children. Further case-control studies, preferable on larger sample sizes, are needed to validate our results.