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Folate intake and MTHFR polymorphism C677T is not associated with ovarian cancer risk: evidence from the meta-analysis

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Abstract

Folate is essential for DNA synthesis and methylation and implicated in the process of carcinogenesis. Several studies inconclusively suggested increased folate intake may reduce ovarian cancer risk. Studies concerning the association between C677T polymorphism in methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), an important enzyme in folate metabolism, and ovarian cancer risk also resulted in no agreement. The meta-analysis was conducted based on current studies to assess the association between folate intake, the MTHFR C667T polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk. 1,158 cases out of 217,309 participants from four cohort studies, 4,519 cases and 6,031 controls from four case–control studies about folate intake along with 5,617 cases and 9,808 controls from 10 publications concerning the polymorphism were pooled, respectively. We detected no significant association between total folate (RR = 1.04, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 0.87–1.23) or dietary folate (RR = 0.88, 95 % CI = 0.75–1.05) intake and ovarian cancer risk, and also no significant relationship was found between MTHFR C677T polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk (TT vs. CC: odds ratio (OR) = 1.15, 95 % CI = 0.90–1.46; CT vs. CC: OR = 1.04, 95 % CI = 0.94–1.16). Our analysis indicated neither folate intake nor MTHFR C677T polymorphism is related to altered susceptibility of ovarian cancer.

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Abbreviations

MTHFR:

Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase

SNP:

Single nucleotide polymorphism

OR:

Odds ratio

95 % CI:

95 % Confidence interval

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2012BAK01B00 and 2011BAK10B00), the National Nature Science Foundation (81125020, 31101261 and 31200569), the Key Research Program (KSZD-EW-Z-021) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (12XD1407000, 12431900500 and 10391902100), Director Foundation (20090101) and the Food Safety Research Center and Key Laboratory of Food Safety Research of INS, SIBS, CAS. Peizhan Chen was partially supported by the SA-SIBS scholarship program.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Food Safety Research, Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China

    Chenglin Li, Peizhan Chen, Pingting Hu, Mian Li, Xiaoguang Li, He Guo, Jingquan Li, Ruiai Chu & Hui Wang

  2. Institute for Food Safety and Health, Illinois Institute of Technology, Bedford Park, IL, USA

    Wei Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory of Food Safety Risk Assessment, Ministry of Health, Beijing, 100021, China

    Hui Wang

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  1. Chenglin Li
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Correspondence to Hui Wang.

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Chenglin Li and Peizhan Chen have contributed equally to this work.

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Li, C., Chen, P., Hu, P. et al. Folate intake and MTHFR polymorphism C677T is not associated with ovarian cancer risk: evidence from the meta-analysis. Mol Biol Rep 40, 6547–6560 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-013-2686-0

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