Premature ovarian failure (POF) is a heterogeneous disease. Though dozens of candidate genes have been identified for the genetic etiology of POF, it is largely unexplained in majority of patients. Recently, Wt1(+/R394W) mice was found to present POF-like phenotype, which indicates that WT1 might be a plausible candidate gene for non-syndromic POF. The coding region of WT1 gene was screened in ...

Sex hormones play important roles in breast cancer (BC) development. This study investigated associations between BC risk and hormone-related gene variants in Chinese women. In a cohort of 336 patients with histopathologically confirmed BC and 390 age-matched controls, we genotyped seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in five hormone-related genes: estrogen receptor-α (ESR1), aromatase ...

BACKGROUND There is a likely genetic component to transsexualism, and genes involved in sex steroidogenesis are good candidates. We explored the specific hypothesis that male-to-female transsexualism is associated with gene variants responsible for undermasculinization and/or feminization. Specifically, we assessed the role of disease-associated repeat length polymorphisms in the androgen recep...

The CYP19 gene encodes for aromatase (P450arom), a key steroidogenic enzyme that catalyzes the final step of estrogen biosynthesis. Apart from rare mutations in CYP19 which result in severe phenotypes associated with estrogen insufficiency, little is known about whether common variation in CYP19 is associated with risk of hormone-related diseases. In this study, we employed a haplotype-based ap...

Estrogen biosynthesis in adipose tissue has assumed great significance in terms of a number of estrogen-related diseases. The biosynthesis of estrogens from C19 steroids is catalyzed by a specific form of cytochrome P450, namely aromatase cytochrome P450 (P450arom; the product of the CYP19 gene). The human CYP19 gene comprises nine coding exons, II-X, and its transcripts are expressed in the ov...

Cytochrome P450 aromatase (Cyp19) is an enzyme catalyzing the synthesis of estrogens, thereby controlling various physiological functions of estrogens. We isolated two cyp19 cDNAs, termed cyp19a and cyp19b, respectively, from zebrafish. These genes are located in linkage groups 18 and 25, respectively. Detailed gene mapping indicated that zebrafish linkage groups 18 and 25 may have arisen from ...

DAX-1 [dosage-sensitive sex reversal, adrenal hypoplasia congenita (AHC) critical region on the X chromosome, gene 1] is an orphan nuclear receptor that represses transcription by steroidogenic factor-1 (SF-1), a factor that regulates expression of multiple steroidogenic enzymes and other genes involved in reproduction. Mutations in the human DAX1 gene (also known as AHC) cause the X-linked syn...

The aromatase enzyme catalyses the conversion of androgens to oestrogens in the oestrogen biosynthesis pathway. Because increased exposure to oestrogens is considered to be a risk factor for breast cancer, the human aromatase gene (CYP19) is a plausible candidate for low penetrance breast cancer susceptibility. Preliminary reports have suggested that specific alleles of a TTTA repeat may be ass...

PURPOSE Given the critical role of the CYP19 gene, encoding aromatase, in estrogen synthesis and the association of the estrogen level with its TTTA repeat polymorphism, the potential influence of this polymorphism on breast cancer survival, and hence management, deserves further study. METHODS Genotyping for the CYP19 TTTA repeat polymorphism was performed on 482 stage I-II and operable stag...

The cytochrome P450 family (CYPs) enzymes play an important role in the metabolism of environmental carcinogens and of oestrogen and can affect breast cancer risk. We hypothesise that polymorphisms of CYP17 and CYP19 gene can predict higher incidence of breast cancer. In the present work the distribution of genotypes and frequency of alleles of the T/C polymorphism in promoter region of CYP17 a...