Correlation of the mutation of p53 gene and the polymorphism at codon 72 in smoking-related non-small cell lung cancer patients.

The polymorphism of p53 gene at codon 72 consisting of either arginine (Arg)- or proline (Pro)-encoded allele is suggested to be associated with the susceptibility of tobacco-related lung cancer. In this study we examined the polymorphism of 224 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and that of 303 control persons with a polymerase chain reaction method and found that Pro-allele carriers were significantly more frequent in those patients who smoked and were affected at a younger age (<65) (P<0.05). We also investigated whether the mutational alterations of this gene could be influenced by the genotype. The overall mutation rate of 114 NSCLC patients examined with a single-strand conformation polymorphism method was 31%, which agreed with previous reports. However, the mutation rate was significantly increased in those patients who smoked and were affected at a younger age (<65) (P<0.05). Although the Pro-allele carriers among the smoker patients showed higher mutation rate than the Arg/Arg homozygotes, the difference between the genotypes had marginal significance (0.1<P<0.05) and was statistically insignificant, if the study was confined to younger patients. Thus, the present data cannot confirm a possible association of the p53 polymorphism with its mutation rate regarding smoking-related lung cancer.