Ethnic variation in genotype frequencies of a p53 intron 7 polymorphism.

Using a PCR-restriction enzyme-based method we found large ethnic variations when a C-->T polymorphism in the human p53 gene at position 14181 in intron 7 was studied in Finnish, Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Indian and Chinese populations. The largest variations were found between Caucasian and Asian, genotype frequencies varied from C 0.95 and T 0.05 in the Finnish population to C 0.67 and T 0.33 in the Chinese population, the relative risk (RR) for T being 6.5 (95% CI 3.4-12.3, P < 0.001). Variations were also found between Finnish and Italian and between Italian and Chinese (RR for T 2.4, 95% CI 1.2-4.9 and 2.7, 95% CI 1.7-4.2, respectively).