Polymorphism +17 C/G in Matrix Metalloprotease MMP8 decreases lung cancer risk

A hospital-based case-control study was designed including 501 lung cancer patients and 510 controls matched. Genotypes were determined by PCR-RFLP. Results were analyzed using unconditional logistic regression, Cox's proportional hazard regression, and the Kaplan-Meier method.The MMP1 and MMP13 promoter polymorphisms were not associated with lung cancer risk, while the C/G polymorphism in MMP8 was associated with a statistically significant decreased risk of developing lung cancer (ORadj = 0.65; 95%CI = 0.45–0.93). The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the polymorphisms in MMP1, MMP8 and MMP13 not seem to modify the overall survival. Multivariate analysis revealed that MMP1, MMP8 and MMP13 polymorphisms are not independent prognostic factors for overall survival.This study suggests that the polymorphism in MMP8 is associated with a decreased lung cancer risk, which can be used as a prognostic marker in lung cancer.Lung cancer constitutes one of the leading causes of death in industrialized countries, and its incidence is rapidly growing in developing nations worldwide. Although tobacco smoke and other environmental pollutants are responsible for more than 80–90% of the cases in men [1], it is well established that less than 10–15% of smokers develop lung cancer, indicating that other factors might contribute to the development of this disease [2,3]. In this regard, the availability of the human genome sequence has revealed the existence of numerous polymorphisms that affect both coding and non-coding regions [4], which might contribute to differences in the individual susceptibility to develop cancer [5-7].One of the main characteristics of cancer cells is their ability to proliferate, invade the surrounding tissues and migrate to distant organs and form metastasis, thereby resulting in the emergence of disseminated metastases, which remains the primary cause of mortality in cancer patients [8-10]. Matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) constitute a group with the ability