Genetic susceptibility to distinct bladder cancer subphenotypes

Cigarette smoking and subtypes of bladder cancer

There is little information regarding associations between suspected bladder cancer risk factors and tumor subtypes at diagnosis. Some, but not all, studies have found that bladder cancer among smokers is often more invasive than it is among nonsmokers. This population-based case-control study was conducted in Los Angeles, California, involving 1,586 bladder cancer patients and their individually matched controls. Logistic regression was used to conduct separate analyses according to tumor subtypes defined by stage and grade. Cigarette smoking increased risk of both superficial and invasive bladder cancer, but the more advanced the stage, the stronger the effect. The odds ratios associated with regular smokers were 2.2 (95% confidence intervals, 1.8-2.8), 2.7 (2.1-3.6) and 3.7 (2.5-5.5) for low-grade superficial, high-grade superficial and invasive tumors respectively. This pattern was consistently observed regardless of the smoking exposure index under examination. Women had higher risk of invasive bladder cancer than men even they smoked comparable amount of cigarettes as men. There was no gender difference in the association between smoking and risk of low-grade superficial bladder cancer. The heterogeneous effect of cigarette smoking was attenuated among heavy users of NSAIDs. Our results indicate that cigarette smoking was more strongly associated with increased risk of invasive bladder cancer than with low-grade superficial bladder cancer.

GSTM1 tissue genotype as a recurrence predictor in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer

Tissue genotyping is more useful approach than using blood genomic DNA, which can reflect the effects of the somatic mutations in cancer. Although polymorphisms in glutathione S-transferase (GST) have been associated with the risk of bladder cancer (BC) development, few reports provide information about the prognosis of BC. We investigated glutathione S-transferase mu (GSTM1) and glutathione S-transferase theta (GSTT1) genotypes using genomic DNA from primary 165 BC tissue samples to assess the association with disease prognosis. DNA samples from tumor were analyzed by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The results were compared with clinicopathological parameters. The prognostic significance of the GSTs was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier and multivariate Cox regression model. Kaplan-Meier estimates revealed significant differences in time to tumor recurrence according to the GSTM1 tissue genotype (P = 0.038) in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Multivariate Cox regression analysis also revealed that the tissue GSTM1 genotype (hazards ratio [HR]: 0.377, P = 0.031) was an independent predictor of bladder tumor recurrence in NMIBC. This identification of GSTM1 tissue genotype as a prognosticator for determining recurrence in NMIBC should prove highly useful in a clinical setting.

Factors that impact susceptibility to fiber-induced health effects

Asbestos and related fibers are associated with a number of adverse health effects, including malignant mesothelioma (MM), an aggressive cancer that generally develops in the surface serosal cells of the pleural, pericardial, and peritoneal cavities. Although approximately 80% of individuals with MM are exposed to asbestos, fewer than 5% of asbestos workers develop MM. In addition to asbestos, other mineralogical, environmental, genetic, and possibly viral factors might contribute to MM susceptibility. Given this complex etiology of MM, understanding susceptibility to MM needs to be a priority for investigators in order to reduce exposure of those most at risk to known environmental carcinogens. In this review, the current body of literature related to fiber-associated disease susceptibility including age, sex, nutrition, genetics, asbestos, and other mineral exposure is addressed with a focus on MM, and critical areas for further study are recommended.

Meta-analysis of association between TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and bladder cancer risk

OBJECTIVES

To perform a meta-analysis to explore a more robust estimate of the effect of the TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism on bladder cancer risk. Studies investigating the association between TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and bladder cancer risk have reported conflicting results.

METHODS

All eligible studies were searched in PubMed. The quality of the studies was evaluated according to a predefined scale. Crude odds ratios, with the 95% confidence intervals, were assessed for the association using fixed- and random-effects models.

RESULTS

We identified 10 case-control studies involving 3549 subjects for the present meta-analysis. Overall, no evidence of an association was observed between the TP53 genotypes and bladder cancer susceptibility when all the studies were pooled into the meta-analysis. However, a significantly decreased risk of bladder cancer was associated with TP53 genotypes for Arg/Arg versus Pro/Pro (odds ratio 0.74, 95% confidence interval 0.55-0.99) and Arg/Arg plus Arg/Pro versus Pro/Pro (odds ratio 0.77, 95% confidence interval 0.59-1.00) in Asians. In contrast, no effect of this polymorphism on bladder cancer in whites, Africans, or other population was observed when only high-quality scored studies were considered.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of the present meta-analysis suggest that the TP53 Arg72 allele is a protective factor and that the Pro/Pro genotype might increase the susceptibility to bladder cancer in Asians. The conflicting findings among studies might have resulted from variations in the allele frequencies among the different races, as well as the methodologic quality of the studies.

Mosaic uniparental disomies and aneuploidies as large structural variants of the human genome

Mosaicism is defined as the coexistence of cells with different genetic composition within an individual, caused by postzygotic somatic mutation. Although somatic mosaicism for chromosomal abnormalities is a well-established cause of developmental and somatic disorders and has also been detected in different tissues, its frequency and extent in the adult normal population are still unknown. We provide here a genome-wide survey of mosaic genomic variation obtained by analyzing Illumina 1M SNP array data from blood or buccal DNA samples of 1991 adult individuals from the Spanish Bladder Cancer/EPICURO genome-wide association study. We found mosaic abnormalities in autosomes in 1.7% of samples, including 23 segmental uniparental disomies, 8 complete trisomies, and 11 large (1.5-37 Mb) copy-number variants. Alterations were observed across the different autosomes with recurrent events in chromosomes 9 and 20. No case-control differences were found in the frequency of events or the percentage of cells affected, thus indicating that most rearrangements found are not central to the development of bladder cancer. However, five out of six events tested were detected in both blood and bladder tissue from the same individual, indicating an early developmental origin. The high cellular frequency of the anomalies detected and their presence in normal adult individuals suggest that this type of mosaicism is a widespread phenomenon in the human genome. Somatic mosaicism should be considered in the expanding repertoire of inter- and intraindividual genetic variation, some of which may cause somatic human diseases but also contribute to modifying inherited disorders and/or late-onset multifactorial traits.