Evaluation of GWAS-identified SNPs at 6p22 with neuroblastoma susceptibility in a Chinese population

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have reported that three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs6939340 A>G, rs4712653 T>C, and rs9295536 C>A) located at 6p22 locus were associated with neuroblastoma susceptibility for Caucasian descent. We conducted this hospital-based case-control study with 201 neuroblastoma patients and 531 controls to investigate the association between these three SNPs in the FLJ22536 gene with neuroblastoma susceptibility in the Chinese Han population. The odds ratio (OR) and 95 % confidence interval (CI) were calculated to estimate the strength of the association using unconditional logistic regression model. We found that the rs6939340 A allele carriers were associated with significantly decreased neuroblastoma susceptibility (AG vs. GG: adjusted OR = 0.54, 95 % CI = 0.38–0.77; AA vs. GG: adjusted OR = 0.49, 95 % CI = 0.25–0.93; and AA/AG vs. GG: adjusted OR = 0.53, 95 % CI = 0.38–0.74) after adjustment for age and gender. The protective association between variant allele and neuroblastoma susceptibility was also observed for the rs4712653 and rs9295536 polymorphisms. Moreover, we found that subjects carrying one or more protective genotypes had a much lower neuroblastoma susceptibility than non-carriers (adjusted OR = 0.60, 95 % CI = 0.43–0.83). Our study verified that the associations between all of the three SNPs in the 6p22 locus are associated with neuroblastoma susceptibility in the Chinese subjects. Further prospective multicenter studies with different ethnicities and larger sample size are needed to validate our findings.