Genetic Association Studies on Prostate Cancer

Abstract

The modern research on molecular basis of prostate cancer (PCa) development includes studies aiming to identify potential genetic markers which could be used in diagnostics and/or monitoring of PCa. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified over 75 variants associated with PCa risk. One of the major PCarelated regions identified through GWASs is found to be a segment of 8q24. Other important PCa-susceptibility regions are 17q12, 17q24, 10q11, and 19q13. Candidategene based approach has also provided evidence of association between PCa risk and genetic variants located in functionally significant genes (both protein-coding and noncoding RNA genes) involved in normal prostatic cell growth, malignant transformation, or in the development of metastases. Nevertheless, the success of these studies is questionable, since numerous candidates for PCa-susceptibility variants were identified, but these results failed to replicate. The main aim of both types of genetic association studies on PCa is the identification of potential PCa genetic markers which could be used for constructing reliable algorithms for evaluating the risk for PCa development and/or PCa progression.

Analysis of association of potentially functional genetic variants within genes encoding miR-34b/c, miR-378 and miR-143/145 with prostate cancer in Serbian population

“…Among the genetic variants discovered as PCa susceptibility loci, most originated from genome-wide association studies while the others located within important tumor-suppressor genes or oncogenes involved in molecular basis of PCa were discovered through candidate-gene based approach (Nikolić et al, 2016[ 26 ]). Recently, microRNA-related genes have emerged as novel candidates, due to accumulating evidence supporting the involvement of regulatory RNA species in PCa pathogenesis (Kanwal et al, 2017[ 21 ]).…”