Role of Interleukin-6 Gene Variants in the Development of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), with its low survival rates and increasing incidence, is due to various etiological factors including environmental, genetic, and epigenetic changes. Interleukin 6 (IL 6) is a cytokine with both proand anti-inflammatory effects. Therefore, we investigated the possible association of the IL-6 gene variants with risk for OSCC in a Turkish cohort.METHODS This study included 42 patients with OSCC and 110 age-and gender-matched healthy controls. Three variants (-174G/C [rs1800795], -572G/C (rs1800796), and -597G/A [rs1800797]) in the IL-6 promoter region were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method.RESULTS There was a significant difference in the genotype and allele frequencies of the IL-6 -174G/C variant between OSCC patients and controls. While the IL-6 -174G/C G/C genotype was higher in the patient group than in the control group, the G/G and C/C genotypes were lower in the patients compared to the control group (p=0.016, OR:0.653, 95% CI: 0.38-1.11). The genotype and allele distributions of -572G/C and -597G/A variants of the IL-6 gene were not statistically different between OSCC patients and the control group.CONCLUSION Our current investigation is focused on the role of variants of IL-6 gene on OSCC. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first study to evaluate the genotype and allele frequencies of IL-6 -174G/C,-572G/C, and 597G/A variants in patients with OSCC in a Turkish population. The results support that the IL-6 -174G/C variant may play an important role in susceptibility to OSCC in our population.