Abstract :
Introduction: Cervical carcinogenesis is a multi-step process associated with refractory infection by
high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) types. Only a minority of HPV infected women develop cervical
intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) or cervical cancer, indicating that HPV infection is not the sole risk factor to
induce cervical cancer.. Single nucleotide polymorphisms are the most common form of genetic variants in
human genome, some of which can influence the susceptibility to human diseases including cancer. TLR9
gene polymorphisms appear to have considerable role in disease susceptibility, including HPV induced
cervical cancer.
Aim: The present study aims to identify the role of TLR9 C2848T (rs352140) gene polymorphism in
cervical cancer susceptibility in East Indian women.
Materials and Methods: Our study was a case – control study. Study subjects comprised 33 women with
histologically proven cervical cancer, and 24 women with benign cervical lesions. The case group included
HPV 16 ve subjects with malignancy. Among the benign group, 15 were HPV16 ve (intermediate group)
and 9 were HPV –ve (control group).. HPV status and HPV type was confirmed by PCR based method,
using specific primers. TLR9 genotyping was performed using PCR RFLP. TLR9 expression was analyzed
across all categories of samples using real time PCR.
Results: Our study showed increased expression of TLR9 in malignant group, compared to the control
group. TLR9 expression was also increased in the HPV ve nonmalignant group, compared to HPV –ve
controls. Correlating TT, CT, CC genotype with TLR9 expression analysis across malignant group and
control group, there was increased expression of TLR9 among TT genotype and CT genotype compared to
CC genotype.
Conclusion: Our study showed that TLR9 C2248T polymorphism causes upregulation of TLR9 expression
among cervical cancer patients. Our studies suggest that the TLR9 C2848T (rs352140) polymorphism may
be a risk factor of cervical cancer in East Indian women.
Keyword :
SNP, TLR9 polymorphism, Cervical cancer.