Background: The cytokine interleukin-22 (IL-22) is produced by T cells and natural killer cells and is associated with tumorigenesis and tumor progression. Unlike most cytokines, the main impact of IL-22 is on non-hematopoietic epithelial cells and fibroblasts in tissues as lung, liver, kidney, thymus, pancreas, breast, gut, skin and synovium. Several (SNPs) have previously been identified in the IL-22 gene as (−429C/T, +1995 A/C and +1046 T/A).
Aim: This study aimed to investigate the association of IL-22 polymorphisms with the colon cancer risk in Egyptian population in relation to tumor staging.
Subject and method: A prospective center-based case-control study comprising 100 patients with pathologically proven colon cancer attending Mansoura oncology center from Jan 2017 till Jan 2019 and 100 age and gender-matched healthy controls.
Real time PCR with TaqMan probes was used to determine the genotypes of -429 C/T.
Results: A significant association was found between CT, TT, CT+TT genotypes, and T allele with the risk of cancer colon. Unfortunately, we did not find any statistically significant difference between IL 22 different genotypes of cases regarding sex, gender, tumor size, albumin, CA 19.9 (P=0.570) or age (P 0.993).
Conclusion: up to the authors' knowledge, this is the first report recording that the IL-22 -429 C/T gene polymorphism is associated with colon cancer risk in Egyptian patients., Also our findings suggested that the IL-22 −429C/T gene polymorphisms might be associated with colon cancer in Egyptian population. Further studies are necessary to confirm our results.