Association of Caveolin-1 genotypes with nasopharyngeal carcinoma susceptibility in Taiwan

Background: Caveolin-1 (Cav-1), which has been proposed as a candidate tumor suppressor, plays a regulatory role in several signaling pathways. High expression of Cav-1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) may enhance tumor cell migration and correlate with poor prognosis of the patients, while the genetic alterations of Cav-1 during nasopharyngeal carcinogenesis are still largely unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between NPC susceptibility and Cav-1 genotypes. Patients and Methods: One hundred and seventy six patients with NPC and 176 age- and gender-matched healthy controls recruited in Taiwan were genotyped and analyzed by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Results: There were significant differences between the NPC and control groups in the distributions of the genotypic (p=0.0019) and allelic frequencies (p=2.5*10 ^-4) in the Cav-1 T29107A (rs7804372) polymorphism. Conclusion: In this first report of Cav-1 involvement in NPC the A allele of Cav-1 T29107A is found to be protective against the development of NPC and may be a novel useful genomic marker for early screening and prediction of NPC.