Genetic analysis of the RNASEL gene in hereditary, familial, and sporadic prostate cancer

Purpose: The RNASEL gene has been proposed as a candidate gene for the HPC1 locus through a positional cloning and candidate gene approach. Cosegregation between the truncating mutation E265X and disease in a hereditary prostate Cancer (HPC) family and association between prostate Cancer risk and the common missense variant R462Q has been reported. To additionally evaluate the possible role of RNASEL in susceptibility to prostate Cancer risk, we performed a comprehensive genetic analysis of sequence variants in RNASEL in the Swedish population.

Experimental design: Using 1624 prostate Cancer cases and 801 unaffected controls, the truncating mutation E265X and five common sequence variants, including the two missense mutations R462Q and D541E, were evaluated for association between genotypes/haplotypes and prostate Cancer risk.

Results: The prevalence of E265X carriers among unaffected controls and prostate Cancer patients was almost identical (1.9 and 1.8% in controls and cases, respectively), and evidence for segregation of E265X with disease was not observed within any HPC family. Overall, the analyses of common sequence variants provided limited evidence for association with prostate Cancer risk. We found a marginally significant inverse association between the missense mutation D541E and sporadic prostate Cancer risk (odds ratio, 0.77; 95% confidence interval, 0.59-1.00) and reduced risk of prostate Cancer in carriers of two different haplotypes being completely discordant.

Conclusions: Considering the high quality in genotyping and the size of this study, these results provide solid evidence against a major role of RNASEL in prostate Cancer etiology in Sweden.