BMC Cancer Research article BioMed Central Open Access Ovarian cancer risk in Polish BRCA1 mutation carriers is not associated with the prohibitin 3' untranslated region polymorphism Anna Jakubowska1,3, Jacek Gronwald1, Janusz Menkiszak2, Bohdan Górski1, Tomasz Huzarski1, Tomasz Byrski1, Axel Benner4, Jan Lubiński1, Rodney J Scott5 and Ute Hamann*3 Address: 1Pomeranian Medical University, Department of Genetics and Pathology, ul. Polabska 4, 70-115 Szczecin, Poland, 2Pomeranian Medical University, Department of Surgical Gynecology and Gynecological Oncology of Adults and Adolescents, ul. Powstancow Wlkp. 72, 70-115 Szczecin, Poland, 3German Cancer Research Center, Division of Molecular Genome Analysis, Im Neuenheimer Feld 580, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany, 4German Cancer Research Center, Division of Biostatistics, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany and 5Discipline of Medical Genetics, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Newcastle, and the Hunter Medical Research Institute, Lookout Road, New Lambton, 2305 NSW, Australia Email: Anna Jakubowska - aniaj@sci.pam.szczecin.pl; Jacek Gronwald - jgron@sci.pam.szczecin.pl; Janusz Menkiszak - janusz@sz.home.pl; Bohdan Górski - gorskib@sci.pam.szczecin.pl; Tomasz Huzarski - huzarski@sci.pam.szczecin.pl; Tomasz Byrski - tomekbyr@poczta.onet.pl; Axel Benner - benner@dkfz-heidelberg.de; Jan Lubiński - lubinski@sci.pam.szczecin.pl; Rodney J Scott - Rodney.Scott@newcastle.edu.au; Ute Hamann* - u.hamann@dkfz-heidelberg.de * Corresponding author Published: 8 April 2008 BMC Cancer 2008, 8:90 doi:10.1186/1471-2407-8-90 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/8/90 Received: 13 July 2007 Accepted: 8 April 2008 © 2008 Jakubowska et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract mutations. Background: The variable penetrance of ovarian cancer in BRCA1 mutation carriers suggests that other genetic or environmental factors modify disease risk. The C to T transition in the 3' untranslated region of the prohibitin (PHB) gene alters mRNA function and has recently been shown to be associated with hereditary breast cancer risk in Polish women harbouring BRCA1 Methods: To investigate whether the PHB 3'UTR polymorphism also modifies hereditary ovarian cancer risk, we performed a case-control study among Polish women carrying one of the three common founder mutations (5382insC, 300 T > G, 4154delA) including 127 ovarian cases and 127 unaffected controls who had both breasts and ovaries intact. Controls were matched to cases by year of birth and BRCA1 mutation. Genotyping analysis was performed using PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Odds ratios (OR) were calculated using conditional and penalized univariable and multivariable logistic regression. Results: A comparison of the genotype frequencies between cases and controls revealed no association of the PHB 3'UTR _CT+TT genotypes with ovarian cancer risk (ORadj 1.34; 95% CI, 0.59–3.11). Conclusion: Our data suggest that the PHB 3'UTR polymorphism does not modify ovarian cancer risk in women carrying one of the three Polish BRCA1 founder mutations. Page 1 of 5 (page number not for citation purposes)