A systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between HOTAIR polymorphisms and susceptibility to breast cancer

Introduction: Many studies are drawing attention to the associations of HOTAIR polymorphisms and susceptibility to breast cancer, while the results remain inconsistent. We conducted a meta-analysis on the association of four common HOTAIR polymorphisms with breast cancer susceptibility. Material and methods: Eligible published articles were searched in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library databases and Web of Science databases up to July 2019. Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were used to identify potential links between lncRNA HOTAIR polymorphisms and the risk of breast cancer. Results: Our results showed no significance in all genetic models of all four SNPs. Pooled analyses detected crucial links between the rs1899663 polymorphism and decreased susceptibility to breast cancer in five genetic models rather than the dominant model in the hospital-based control subgroup. For the rs920778 polymorphism, we found that it significantly decreased breast cancer risk under recessive, homozygous and heterozygous models within the west Asian subgroup and increased breast cancer risk under allele and dominant models within the East Asian subgroup. Additionally, rs920778 polymorphism decreased breast cancer risk under recessive and heterozygous models in the hospital-based control subgroup. However, no significant association was observed between the rs4759314 polymorphism and breast cancer risk in overall and stratified analyses. For rs12826786 polymorphism, it was greatly associated with decreased breast cancer risk under recessive, homozygous and heterozygous models in the hospital-based control subgroup. Conclusions: HOTAIR rs920778, rs1899663 and rs12826786 polymorphisms may contribute to breast cancer susceptibility.