CTLA-4 gene polymorphism +49 A/G contributes to genetic susceptibility to two infection-related cancers—hepatocellular carcinoma and cervical cancer

Accumulated evidence suggested that cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA4) plays an important role in the negative regulation of T-cell proliferation and activation, and thus participates in antitumor immunity and cancer surveillance. Previously we reported that the CTLA4 49A/G (rs231775) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) was a candidate cancer susceptibility marker for breast, lung, esophageal, and gastric cancers. In the present study, we expanded our study to two infection-related cancers, namely, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cervical cancer. We genotyped rs231775 in two independent case-control studies of 864 HCC patients and 864 control subjects, and 719 cervical cancer patients and 719 control subjects. In the multivariate logistic regression models, CTLA4 +49 A/G variant genotype was associated with increased risk (AA vs GG) by 1.43-fold (95% CI = 0.94–2.17) for HCC, and 1.66-fold (95% CI = 1.13–2.44) for cervical cancer. Taken together, the results suggest that CTLA4 rs231775 may serve as a common cancer susceptibility marker.