title: Telomere reverse transcriptase (TERT) rs2735940 increases cancer risk.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) rs2735940 polymorphism was found to be associated with increased cancer risk. However, recent studies reported controversial results. The aim of our study was to detect its relationship with cancer risk.
  
  
  METHODS
  EMBASE and PubMed databases were searched for all publications until October 2014. ORs and 95% CIs were applied to investigate the association in the random-effects model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirteen case-control studies with 19385 cases and 17558 controls were included in this study. We found a significant association between cancer risk and TERT rs2735940 polymorphism (OR=1.06, 95% CI 1.02-1.11, P=0.005). In the subgroup analysis by ethnicity, a marginal association was found in Caucasians (OR=1.05, 95% CI 1.00-1.10, P=0.05), but not in Asians (OR=1.01, 95% CI 0.82-1.24, P=0.93). In the subgroup analysis by cancer site, this polymorphism was significantly associated with lung cancer risk (OR=1.08, 95% CI 1.02-1.13, P=0.004).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  TERT rs2735940 polymorphism was significantly associated with cancer risk, especially lung cancer.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China (mainland).
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China (mainland).
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China (mainland).
authors.forename: Ruihua
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China (mainland).
authors.forename: Yaxiong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China (mainland).
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China (mainland).
authors.forename: Qingsheng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China (mainland).
authors.forename: Junling
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shi
mesh_terms: D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics*; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics*; D012307:Risk Factors; D019098:Telomerase / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: C509186:TERT protein, human; D019098:Telomerase