Protective Role of -197 A/G Heterozygosity in the Development and Severity of Colorectal Cancer in the Bulgarian Population.

: Interleukin (IL)-17A and IL-17F, expressed mainly by a novel subset of CD-positive (+) T-helper (Th) cells of the immune system, has been closely related to inflammatory conditions underlying colorectal cancer pathogenesis. Accordingly, we conducted a case-control study to investigate the association of common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the and genes (rs2275913 and rs763780, respectively) with the susceptibility and severity of CRC patients from the Bulgarian population. : 136 patients with histologically confirmed CRC diagnosis and 116 healthy individuals were recruited in the present study. Genotypes were determined by the restriction fragment length polymorphism-polymerase chain reaction (RFLP-PCR) technique. : The heterozygous A/G-genotype was overrepresented among the control group ( = 0.003). Additionally, the carriers of the heterozygous A/G-genotype had a 2.39-fold lower risk for CRC compared to the G/G-genotype (OR = 0.418, = 0.006). Our results also indicated that in the advanced CRC stages (III + IV) the heterozygous genotype (A/G) appeared to be less frequent ( = 0.024, χ-test). Among the patients with detected distant metastases, the A/G-carriers were the smallest part (14.3%) compared to the homozygous genotypes A/A (42.9%) and G/G (42.8%), = 0.006. There was no association of the studied rs763780 SNP with susceptibility and severity of CRC among the studied subjects, although the heterozygous C/T-carriers had shorter median survival compared to the T/T-carriers ( = 0.129). : Our study finds a protective role of heterozygosity for the -197A/G SNP and negative effects of the A-allele on CRC progression.