Target Sequence Polymorphism of Human Manganese Superoxide Dismutase Gene and Its Association with Cancer Risk: A Review

In normal state of a cell, endogenous antioxidant enzyme system maintains the level of reactive oxygen species generated by mitochondrial respiratory chain. Mitochondrial superoxide dismutase [SOD; manganese SOD (MnSOD) or SOD2] neutralizes highly reactive superoxide radical (O center dot(-)(2)), the first member in the plethora of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species. A polymorphism in the target sequence of MnSOD enzyme, Val(16)Ala, is known to disrupt proper targeting of the enzyme from cytosol to mitochondrial matrix where it acts on O center dot(-)(2) to dismutate it to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). A change in the level of O center dot(-)(2) and of H2O2 in mitochondria modulates the molecular mechanisms of apoptosis, cellular adhesion, and cell proliferation and thus play key role in cancer development. Previous studies investigating the association between MnSOD Val(16)Ala polymorphism and cancer risk have revealed inconsistent results. We conducted a meta-analysis on these studies. Our meta-analysis on total of 7,366 cancer cases and 9,102 controls from 13 published case-control studies showed no overall association of this polymorphism either with breast cancer risk or for cancer risk as such (for Ala homozygous odds ratio, 0.98; 95% confidence interval, 0.90-1.07 and odds ratio, 1.02; 95% confidence interval, 0.91-1.14, respectively). Also, there was no major effect in either recessive or dominant model for the MnSOD Val(16)Ala. However, a proper evaluation of this polymorphism with cancer link demands experiments involving large sample size, cross-tabulation of gene-gene, gene-environment interactions, and linkage studies, as cell biological experiments clearly correlate critical levels of mitochondrial O center dot(-)(2) and H2O2 to carcinogenesis. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(12):3298-305)