Allelic and Haplotype Frequencies of the p53 Polymorphisms in Brain Tumor Patients

E. BIROŠ, I. KALINA, A. KOHÚT¹, E. BOGYIOVÁ², J. ŠALAGOVIČ,
I. ŠULLA³

Department of Medical Biology, ¹Department of Pharmacology, and ²Institute of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, P. J. Šafárik University, Košice, ³Department of Neurosurgery, Teaching Hospital, P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovak Republic

Received January 9, 2001
Accepted May 3, 2001

Summary
The polymorphisms of the tumor suppressor gene p53 in exon 4 (p53 BstUI) and in intron 6 (p53 MspI) have been suggested to be associated with the genetically determined susceptibility in diverse types of human cancer. In our hospital-based case-control study, we examined the allele and genotype incidence of these polymorphisms as well as their haplotype combinations in 60 brain tumor patients (27 males and 33 females) and 183 controls without malignancies. The genotype characteristics were determined by the PCR-based RFLP method using DNA extracted from peripheral blood. In this study we show that the p53 BstUI and the p53 MspI polymorphisms are not associated with increased risk of brain tumors. Thus, we conclude that the p53 BstUI and the p53 MspI polymorphic sites within the tumor suppressor gene p53 do not represent genetic determinants of susceptibility to brain tumors.