New research published in Nature Genetics (February 2014) by Qilai Huang and colleagues gives a new insight into the mechanisms by which men with a specific polymorphism (variation in a gene) have increased susceptibility to Prostate Cancer.
The team involving researchers in Finland, Sweden and China found that the ‘rs339331’ polymorphism is located within a functional binding site of the HOXB13 gene and causes an up regulation of RFX6, a protein which is associated with prostate cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Also, their analysis of prostate tumours found a significant association between the T allele at rs339331 and higher levels of RFX6 mRNA.
For more details please see:
The CancerIndex page on the HOXB13 gene:
http://www.cancerindex.org/geneweb/HOXB13.htm
Nature Genetics:
Huang Q et al. A prostate cancer susceptibility allele at 6q22 increases RFX6 expression by modulating HOXB13 chromatin binding. Nature Genetics 46, 126–135 (2014)
CancerIndex.org 