Scientific Reports (Jul 2017)

Analysis of autophagy gene polymorphisms in Spanish patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

  • Javier Fernández-Mateos,
  • Raquel Seijas-Tamayo,
  • Juan Carlos Adansa Klain,
  • Miguel Pastor Borgoñón,
  • Elisabeth Pérez-Ruiz,
  • Ricard Mesía,
  • Elvira del Barco,
  • Carmen Salvador Coloma,
  • Antonio Rueda Dominguez,
  • Javier Caballero Daroqui,
  • Encarnación Fernández Ruiz,
  • Juan Jesús Cruz-Hernández,
  • Rogelio González-Sarmiento

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-07270-0
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Abstract Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth cancer on incidence worldwide. Tobacco and alcohol consumption are the most classical risk factors associated with its development. Autophagy process has a dual effect both in tumourigenesis and tumour suppressing activity. To investigate the importance of this pathway in HNSCC susceptibility, a risk factor matched case-control association study was performed with four candidate polymorphisms in autophagy genes (ATG2B, ATG5, ATG10, ATG16L1). We found an association between the variant in ATG10 rs1864183 and a higher susceptibility to develop laryngeal cancer, ATG2B rs3759601 and pharyngeal cancer and ATG16L1 rs2241880 and oral carcinoma. ATG5 rs2245214 SNP was not associated with any location. Overall, our results indicate the importance of the autophagy pathway in the susceptibility of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and demonstrate the heterogeneity between its locations encompassed under a single terminology.