A Genetic Variant in the Promoter Region of Toll-Like Receptor 9 and Cervical Cancer Susceptibility

The Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are important for the innate immune system by recognizing pathogen-associated molecular patterns expressed in infectious agents. E6 and E7 protein from HPV16 suppress the host immune response by regulating the TLR9 transcript. Therefore, we hypothesized that a single nucleotide polymorphism in TLR9 may contribute to cervical cancer. We genotyped TLR9 -1486T/C (rs187084) in a case-control study of 712 cervical cancer cases and 717 cancer-free controls in Chinese women. Logistic regression analyses showed that the rs187084 heterozygote TC was associated with a significantly increased risk of cervical cancer (adjusted OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.01-1.62), compared with the TT genotype. Although the variant homozygote was associated with a nonsignificantly increased cervical cancer risk, the TC/CC genotypes contributed to the risk of cervical cancer in the dominant genetic model (adjusted OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.01-1.53). The findings indicate that TLR9 -1486T/C (rs187084) may contribute to cervical cancer carcinogenesis.