Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in colorectal cancer (CRC) identified five regions near transforming growth factor β-related genes BMP4, GREM1, CDH1, SMAD7 and RPHN2.
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of a SMAD7 gene polymorphism (rs2337107) on risk of CRC and clinicopathological features in an Iranian population.
Common colorectal cancer risk variants in SMAD7 are associated with survival among prediagnostic nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug users: a population-based study of postmenopausal women.
Recently we have demonstrated variation in SMAD7, defined by the single nucleotide polymorphism rs12953717, to be strongly associated with risk of colorectal cancer.
When assessed by a priori defined functional pathways, tumor growth factor β (TGFβ) signaling was associated with CRC risk (<i>P</i> ≤ 0.001), with most statistically significant genes being <i>SMAD7 (P<sub>BH</sub></i> = 0.008) and <i>SMAD3 (P<sub>BH</sub></i> = 0.008), and 18 SNPs in the vitamin D receptor (VDR) binding sites (<i>P</i> = 0.036).
Associations of 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms at 8q24, 9p24, and 18q21 (SMAD7) and CRC were investigated in a three-center collaborative study including two U.K. case-control cohorts (Sheffield and Leeds) and a U.S. case-control study of CRC cases from high-risk Utah pedigrees.
For SMAD7 gene, rs4939827 and rs4464148 are risk factors for CRC among Caucasian whereas rs12953717 could elevate the susceptibility to CRC in both Caucasian and Asian.
We used meta-analysis of an efficient empirical-Bayes estimator to detect potential multiplicative interactions between each of the SNPs [rs16892766 at 8q23.3 (EIF3H/UTP23), rs6983267 at 8q24 (MYC), rs10795668 at 10p14 (FLJ3802842), rs3802842 at 11q23 (LOC120376), rs4444235 at 14q22.2 (BMP4), rs4779584 at 15q13 (GREM1), rs9929218 at 16q22.1 (CDH1), rs4939827 at 18q21 (SMAD7), rs10411210 at 19q13.1 (RHPN2), and rs961253 at 20p12.3 (BMP2)] and select major CRC risk factors (sex, body mass index, height, smoking status, aspirin/nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use, alcohol use, and dietary intake of calcium, folate, red meat, processed meat, vegetables, fruit, and fiber).
These findings suggest that individuals with this SMAD7 variant that develop CRC are more probably to have tumors with greater invasiveness and methylation of RUNX3, which potentially contributes to their poorer observed survival.
We evaluated selected SNPs in three replication sample sets (7,473 cases, 5,984 controls) and identified three SNPs in SMAD7 (involved in TGF-beta and Wnt signaling) associated with CRC.