title: The aromatase gene (CYP19A1) variants and circulating hepatocyte growth factor in postmenopausal women.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Estrogen and androgen have been linked to the regulation of circulating hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), an adipose tissue-derived cytokine. It is possible that the CYP19A1 gene which alters sex hormones production may influence HGF levels. We examined the association between the CYP19A1 gene variants and plasma HGF concentrations.
  
  
  METHODS
  We evaluated 45 common and putative functional variants of CYP19A1 and circulating levels of HGF among 260 postmenopausal women who later developed colorectal cancer from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Cohort. As the distribution of HGF levels was highly skewed, we transformed HGF concentrations for all women into a log-, ranked-, or normal score-scale value. Multiple linear regression with adjustment for age was used to evaluate the associations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We observed an association between the rs7172156, rs1008805, rs6493494, rs749292, and rs11636639 variants and HGF levels in ranked and normal score scales (corrected p values ≤0.02), although the association of these 5 SNPs with log-scale HGF was not significant (corrected p values ≥0.16). The associations remained unchanged after additional adjustment for hormone therapy use and estradiol levels. These 5 SNPs, which were in linkage disequilibrium (pairwise D'≥97%, r(2)≥56%), constituted a block with 2 common haplotypes accounting for 82% frequency. The most common haplotype, TCCCA, was associated with lower ranked- or normal score-transformed HGF levels (corrected p values ≤0.001), whereas the second most common haplotype, CTTCA, was associated with higher ranked- or normal score-transformed HGF levels (corrected p values ≤0.02).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings of a potential association between the CYP19A1 variants and circulating HGF levels warrant confirmation in studies with larger sample size.
authors: Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. jhlin@rics.bwh.harvard.edu
authors: Jennifer H
authors: JH
authors: Lin
authors: Marc J
authors: MJ
authors: Gunter
authors: JoAnn E
authors: JE
authors: Manson
authors: Kathryn M
authors: KM
authors: Rexrode
authors: Nancy R
authors: NR
authors: Cook
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Kraft
authors: Barbara B
authors: BB
authors: Cochrane
authors: Rowan T
authors: RT
authors: Chlebowski
authors: Gloria Y F
authors: GY
authors: Ho
authors: Shumin M
authors: SM
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001141:Aromatase / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D017228:Hepatocyte Growth Factor / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D017698:Postmenopause / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D017228:Hepatocyte Growth Factor; D001141:Aromatase; C561410:CYP19A1 protein, human