Manganese superoxide dismutase gene polymorphism, MnSOD plasma levels and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer

Aim: We aimed to confirm any relation between the manganese‐containing superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) polymorphism and risk of ovarian carcinoma as well as to demonstrate any relation between the MnSOD mitochondrial signal sequence polymorphism and plasma MnSOD enzyme levels in women with ovarian carcinoma and healthy subjects. Methods: In a population‐based case – control study, we compared 55 cases with ovarian carcinoma and 51 controls regarding the occurrence of the C/T (alanine/valine, A/V) substitution at the −9 position in the mitochondrial signal sequence of the MnSOD gene. Polymerase chain reaction, restriction fragment length polymorphism and Nu‐Sieve agarose gel electrophoresis were utilized to perform genotyping. Additionally, MnSOD plasma levels were measured using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay methodology. Results: There were no statistically significant elevated risks associated with V or A alleles. No statistically significant association between the alleles and plasma MnSOD levels were found. Overall plasma MnSOD levels were found to be significantly higher in the patient group. Conclusions: Although in this study, patients with ovarian carcinoma had significantly higher plasma MnSOD levels than the control group (P