The effect of survivin gene in breast cancer risk and prognosis

Objectives The accumulation of genetic damages in onset of cancer induce activation of protooncogenes or inactivation of tumor suppressor genes thus cause disruption of the balance between cell proliferation and programmed cell death. As a member of the apoptosis inhibitory protein family (IAP), survivin play important roles in carcinogenesis process. The evidence suggests that polymorphisms located in survivin promoter region may be important in determining genetic susceptibility of cancer. In this study, we aimed to examine a possible role of survivin -31 and -625 G/C gene polymorphisms in breast cancer. Methods A total of 160 breast cancer cases and 153 healthy controls were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) methodology. Results Genotype and allele distributions and of -31 and -625 G/C polymorphisms were not significantly different between two groups. However, we observed the carriers of survivin -625 C/G polymorphism homozygous genotypes (GG/CC) were the significantly higher in patients with tumor necrosis (p=0.047). Conclusions Our results suggest that survivin -625 C/G polymorphism may be related with tumor prognosis, but we are opinion of that our result require to be validated in larger samples and further comprehensive research may explore the correlation.