The Association of ACSL1 and UCP2 3′ UTR Polymorphisms With the Clinicopathological Characteristics of Patients With Colorectal Cancer in Serbia

Cancer cells rely upon fatty acids (FA) for proliferation, survival, and metastasis. Overexpression of long-chain acyl CoA synthetase 1 (ACSL1), responsible for long-chain FA synthesis, can increase cell invasion and proliferation. Uncoupling protein-2 (UCP2) promotes FA metabolism over glucose utilization in colorectal cancer cells. We aimed to investigate the association of UCP2 45bp ins/del and ACSL1 rs8086 polymorphisms with the clinicopathological characteristics in patients with colorectal cancer. The study included 183 patients with colorectal cancer, 110 (60.1%) men and 73 (39.9%) women, with an average age of 62.1 years. Clinicopathological characteristics: tumor location, histological differentiation, presence of lymph node metastases, presence of distant metastases, and stage of the disease were collected for all patients. Rs8086 polymorphism genotypes were detected by Real-time PCR using TaqMan^® SNP Genotyping assay, while genotyping of 45 bp ins/del polymorphism was performed using the PCR method. Distant metastases were more frequent in carriers of the ACSL1 TT genotype than carriers of the CC or CT genotype (p=0.046). Also, carriers of the UCP2 45 I allele (II+ID genotype) had distant metastases more frequently than patients with the DD genotype (p=0.029). It has also been observed that there is a statistically significant association of ACSL1 and UCP2 genotype with cancer localization (p=0.006 and p=0.017, respectively). The results suggest that ACSL1 rs8086 and UCP2 45 bp ins/del polymorphisms are associated with the occurrence of distant metastases and tumor location in patients with colorectal cancer.