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School of Public Health and South Carolina Cancer Center, University of South Carolina [W. Z., D-W. X., Q. D., X-O. S.], University of South Carolina School of Medicine and South Carolina Cancer Center [W-Q. W., X-O. S.], Columbia, South Carolina 29203, and Shanghai Cancer Institute, Shanghai 200032, China [F. J., J-R. C., Q. D., Y-T. G.]
| Abstract |
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Leu) of the CYP1B1 gene using a
PCR-RFLP-based assay. The frequency of the Leu allele
was 53% in cases and 46% in controls (P = 0.06).
Compared with those with the Val/Val genotype, women
with the Leu/Leu genotype had a 2.3-fold [95%
confidence interval (CI), 1.24.5] elevated risk of breast cancer
after adjusting for potential confounding variables. This positive
association was more pronounced among postmenopausal women (Odds ratio,
3.1; 95% CI, 1.09.1) than premenopausal women (OR, 1.9; 95% CI,
0.84.3). Elevated risks of breast cancer associated with homozygosity
for the Leu allele were observed in virtually all
subgroups of women defined by major risk factors for breast cancer. The
results from this study were consistent with recent findings from
in vitro and animal experiments implicating a
potentially important role of CYP1B1 in the etiology of human breast
cancer. | Introduction |
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Catechol estrogens, including 4-hydroxyestradiol, are metabolically inactivated by catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT; Ref. 3 ). Recently, a variant COMT allele that is associated with reduced enzyme activity has been linked to elevated risk of breast cancer in several epidemiological studies (7, 8, 9) , including our study among Chinese women in Shanghai (9) . This suggests further that 4-hydroxyestradiol, and thus its metabolic enzyme CYP1B1, may be involved in the etiology of breast cancer.
In addition to catalyzing the formation of 4-hydroxyestradiol, CYP1B1 has also been shown to be involved in the metabolic activation of certain environmental procarcinogens, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heterocyclic aromatic amines (10 , 11) , potent mammary carcinogens in experimental animals (12, 13, 14) . In some experiments, CYP1B1 has been shown to be even more active than CYP1A1 in the activation of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to genotoxic intermediates (11) . The expression of the CYP1B1 gene in human breast epithelial cells suggests that this enzyme may play an important role in the in situ activation of both environmental carcinogens and endogenous estrogens.
The CYP1B1 gene is located in chromosome 2p21-p22 and contains three exons (15, 16, 17) . The entire coding sequence of the genes, however, is contained in exons 2 and 3 (15, 16, 17) , and exon 3 encodes the heme-binding region of the enzyme (18) . A G-to-C transversion at exon 3 was reported to result in a valine (GTG) to leucine (CTG) substitution in codon 432 (17) . This change creates an Eco57I restriction site, making detection of this polymorphism in large epidemiological studies cost efficient. Prompted by the discovery of this easily identifiable polymorphism and findings from recent laboratory studies showing an important role of CYP1B1 in the metabolic activation of estrogens and environmental mammary carcinogens, we evaluated the relation between CYP1B1 genotype and breast cancer risk in a subset of women who participated in the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study.
| Materials and Methods |
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Controls were randomly selected from the female general population and frequency-matched to cases by age (5-year intervals). The number of controls in each age-specific stratum was determined in advance according to the age distribution of the incident breast cases reported to the Shanghai Tumor Registry during 19901993. The Shanghai Resident Registry, which keeps registry cards for all adult residents in urban Shanghai, was used to randomly select controls. For each age-predetermined control, a registry card identifying a potential control of the same 5-year age group was randomly selected. Only the women who lived at the address during the study period were considered to be eligible for the study. In-person interviews were completed for 1556 (90.3%) of the 1724 eligible controls identified. Reasons for nonparticipation included refusal (166 controls, 9.6%) and death or a prior cancer diagnosis (2 controls, 0.1%).
A structured questionnaire was used to elicit detailed information on demographic factors, menstrual and reproductive history, hormone use, dietary habits, prior disease history, physical activity, tobacco and alcohol use, weight, and family history of cancer. All participants were also measured for their current weight, circumferences of the waist and hip, and sitting and standing heights. Among those who completed the in-person interviews, blood samples, 10 ml from each woman, were collected using EDTA or heparin Vacutainer tubes from 1193 (82%) cases and 1310 (84%) controls. These samples were processed on the same day at the Shanghai Cancer Institute, and buffy coats (WBCs) for each participant were aliquoted into two 2-ml vials and stored -70°C.
Only a subset of subjects (200 cases and 200 controls) was included in the current study to better use the limited funds available for this substudy. With this sample size, we had 85% statistical power to detect a 2-fold or higher risk of breast cancer for factors with a 20% frequency (type 1 error, 0.05, two-sided). The subjects included in this study were primarily from those who were recruited in the early phase of the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study, because the genotyping work was initiated prior to the completion of the main study. Fourteen patients with a diagnosis of benign breast disease were accidentally included in the initial case group and were subsequently excluded from the analysis. Genomic DNA for cases and controls was extracted from buffy coat fractions using the method described previously (20) . Briefly, frozen WBCs were thawed at the room temperature and then digested overnight at 55°C in 500 µl lysis buffer [50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.5), 1 mM EDTA, 0.2% SDS, and 200 µg/ml proteinase K]. The digestion was precipitated directly with isopropanol, and the pellets were washed with 70% ethanol. The genomic DNA pellets (50100 µg) were dissolved in 300800 µl of Tris-EDTA buffer. Genomic DNA (10100 ng) was used for each PCR reaction.
CYP1B1 genotypes were determined using a
PCR-RFLP-based assay. According to the published sequence of the human
CYP1B1 gene, we designed two primers (forward,
5'-TCACTTGCTTTTCTCTCTCC; reverse, 5'-AATTTCAG-CTTGCCTCTTG) to
amplify a 650-bp fragment of exon 3. The PCR reactions were performed
on Perkin-Elmer GeneAmp System 9700 according to the manufacturers
protocol. Specifically, these reactions were carried out in 50 µl of
volume of 20 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.4), 50
mM KCl, 1.0 mM
MgCl2, 0.2 mM
deoxynucleotide triphosphate, 1 unit of Taq polymerase, and
0.4 µM of each oligonucleotide primer. The
reactions were heated to 94°C for 1 min, followed by 35 cycles of
94°C for 30 s, 60°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 40 s.
At the end, the reactions were extended for 7 min at 72°C. Each PCR
product was subjected to Eco57I digestion prior to
electrophoresis. The DNA fragments were then separated using 3% 2:1
Nusiev/SeaKern agarose gel. The allele types were determined as
follows: two fragments of 310- and 340-bp for the Leu allele
(CTG), and a single 650-bp fragment for the Val
allele (GTG). Representative genotypes are shown in Fig. 1
. To monitor the quality of laboratory work, a second tube of 20 study
samples was included in the genetic assays. Laboratory staff were
blinded to the identification of the quality control samples. The
genotypes for 20 women that were determined from the first and second
tubes were in complete agreement.
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| Results |
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| Discussion |
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The functional significance of the Val432Leu polymorphism has not been studied adequately. Because exon 3 encodes for the heme-binding region of the CYP1B1 enzyme, nucleotide changes in this exon may be significant to the function of this enzyme. Bailey et al. (21) reported that Caucasian patients with the Val/Val genotype had a significantly higher percentage of breast cancer that were positive for ERs or PRs, suggesting that this polymorphism may be functionally important for the expression of these steroid receptors in breast cancer (21) . Because the prognosis for ER/PR-positive cancer is better than ER/PR-negative cancer, case-control studies including prevalent cases may be subjective to survival bias. In other words, the Val/Val genotype may be overrepresented in prevalent cases, which may attenuate the positive association, if any, with the Leu/Leu genotype. In our study, all breast cancer cases were newly diagnosed, and only 1.1% of eligible cases were missed because of death prior to interviews. Therefore, the potential for survival bias should be minimal in this study. We found that the Leu/Leu genotype was associated with an elevated risk of breast cancer. Furthermore, the positive association between the Leu/Leu genotype and breast cancer was more pronounced among postmenopausal women, among whom more breast cancers are reported to be positive for ERs and/or PRs than those diagnosed among premenopausal women. We were unable at present to evaluate directly the association of CYP1B1 genotypes with subtypes of breast cancer defined by steroid receptors, because no such data were collected.
In addition to estrogen 4-hydroxylation, estrogen hydroxylations
also occur at C2, C6, C15, and C16 positions. Among them, estrogen C2
and C16 hydroxylation are of particularly biological and quantitative
importance (2)
. Similar to 4-hydroxyestrogen,
16
-hydroxyestrone has been shown to be genotoxic, reacting with DNA
to form adducts (2)
. On the other hand, 2-hydroxyestrogen
has no estrogenic effect, and in fact, 2-methoxyestrogen may act as an
antiestrogen in estrogen-sensitive tissues (2
, 3)
. CYP1B1
primarily catalyzes estrogen 4-hydroxylation (2)
. We found
that the positive association of the CYP1B1-Leu allele with
breast cancer was stronger among postmenopausal than premenopausal
women. Because the estrogen level is higher among premenopausal than
postmenopausal women, our findings suggest that this polymorphism might
be more closely related to the activation of environmental mammary
carcinogens than estrogen 4-hydroxylation. Very recent data from
in vitro experiments suggested that the isozyme encoded by
the Leu allele might have an elevated activity in the
activation of mammary carcinogens but a reduced activity in estrogen
4-hydroxylation (22)
.
The methodological limitations of this study were few. The participation rate of this study was high, minimizing potential selection bias that is common to many case-control studies. Chinese women living in Shanghai are relatively homogeneous in ethnic backgrounds, because >98% of them are classified into a single ethnic group (Han Chinese). We have also compared the place of birth between cases and controls and found that these two groups of women were very similar. Therefore, the potential confounding effect by ethnicity in association studies of genetic biomarkers, may not be a major concern in our study. The sample size in this study was not large, which may have resulted in a relatively unstable estimate of risk, particularly in stratified analyses. Nevertheless, the results from this study are consistent with the observations from laboratory investigation, implicating a potential important role of the CYP1B1 enzyme in the etiology of breast cancer. Our findings are thus biologically plausible and merit further investigation with a larger sample size or in other ethnic populations.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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1 Supported in part by USPHS Grant R01-CA64277
from the National Cancer Institute. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be
addressed, at School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, 15
Richland Medical Park, Suite 301, Columbia SC 29203. Phone:
(803) 434-1612; Fax: (803) 434-1626. ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: CYP1B1, cytochrome
P4501B1; OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence interval; ER, estrogen
receptor; PR, progesterone receptor. ![]()
Received 3/31/99; revised 11/ 2/99; accepted 11/30/99.
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