Association of MTHFR rs9651118 and TYMS rs2790 Polymorphisms with Risk of Cancers: A Case-Control Study and Meta-analysis

Recently, rs9651118 in the MTHFR gene and rs2790 in the TYMS gene have been repeatedly studied for their contribution to cancer risk. However, the results remain conflicting rather than conclusive. Therefore, we here conducted a replication case-control study and a meta-analysis to comprehensively examine the contribution of rs9651118 and rs2790 to cancer risk. A total of 1727 patients with colorectal/gastric/liver (787/460/480) cancer and 800 healthy controls were recruited, and the Sanger sequencing was applied to genotype rs9651118 and rs2790. Besides, a total of 23 eligible studies were included in the following meta-analysis. After Bonferroni correction, the results of case-control study suggested that significant associations between rs9651118 and colorectal cancer (CRC) risk, rs9651118 and gastric cancer (GC) risk, and rs2790 and liver cancer (LC) risk were identified in Hubei Chinese population. The results of meta-analysis indicated that after Bonferroni correction, both rs9651118 and rs2790 were significantly associated with total cancer risk especially in Asian population and based on Sanger sequencing method, rs9651118 was significantly associated with breast cancer (BC) risk, and rs2790 was significantly associated with the risk of CRC and GC. In conclusion, the present findings revealed that the MTHFR gene rs9651118 may participate in the risk of total cancer (especially BC) in Asian population, and the TYMS gene rs2790 may be associated with the risk of total cancer (especially CRC) in Asian population and also the risk of GC in total population.