Recent studies identified an increased risk of prostate cancer (PCa) in Caucasian men harboring polymorphisms of genes involved in innate immunity and inflammation. This study was designed to assess whether single nucleotide polymorphisms in the IL-10 promoter play a role in predisposing individuals to PCa in a Chinese population.

We genotyped three SNPs of the IL-10 promoter (IL-10 -1082A/G, -819T/C and -592A/C) using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis in 262 subjects with PCa and 270 age-matched healthy controls. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were determined by logistic regression for the associations between IL-10 genotype and haplotype with the risk of PCa and advanced PCa grade.

No significant differences in allele frequency or genotype distribution were observed for any of the IL-10 SNPs between PCa patients and control subjects. Significantly higher frequencies of G(-1082), C(-819) and C(-592) allele and GCC haplotype were observed, however, in early stage patients in comparison to advanced PCa patients (for G -1082, 13.9% vs 6.1%, OR=2.48, P=0.005; for C-819 40.3% vs 30.8%, OR=1.51, P=0.043; for C-512 40.3% vs 30.8%,OR=1.51, P=0.043; and for Haplotype GCC 11.1%vs 5.1%, OR = 2.66, P = 0.008, respectively).

Our results identify that IL-10 promoter polymorphisms might not be a risk factor for PCa in Chinese cohorts, but associate with PCa grade, suggesting that IL-10 expression may impact PCa progression.

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.