Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) maternal-expressed gene 3 (MEG3) is associated with proliferation of various tumor cells and has decreased expression in many types of cancers. In this study, we aimed at demonstrating the association between MEG3 polymorphisms and the risk of lung cancer in northeast China. There were 526 lung cancer patients and 526 healthy controls included in this hospital-based case-control study. The genotyping of two polymorphisms, rs7158663 G > A and rs4081134 G>A, was performed by the Taqman allelic discrimination method. We found that MEG3 rs4081134-AA may be associated with the risk of lung cancer (AA vs. GG: adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.487, confidence interval [95% CI] = 0.257-0.897, p = 0.030; AA vs. AG+GG: adjusted OR = 0.522, 95% CI = 0.274-0.992, p = 0.047). Similar associations in several subgroups were found in subsequent stratified analysis. Further, there were no statistically significant interactions of rs4081134 polymorphism and smoking to lung cancer susceptibility. In addition, the associations between the MEG3 rs7158663 polymorphism and lung cancer susceptibility were not found. These results indicate that the MEG3 rs4081134 polymorphism was significantly associated with lung cancer susceptibility in the Chinese population.
Keywords: LncRNAs; MEG3; lung cancer; single-nucleotide polymorphism; susceptibility.