Alternative polyadenylation-related genetic variants contribute to bladder cancer risk

Aberrant alternative polyadenylation (APA) events play an important role in cancers, but little is known about whether APA-related genetic variants contribute to the susceptibility to bladder cancer. Previous genome-wide association study performed APA quantitative trait loci (apaQTL) analyses in bladder cancer, and identified 17 955 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We found that gene symbols of APA affected by apaQTL-associated SNPs were closely correlated with cancer signaling pathways, high mutational burden, and immune infiltration. Association analysis showed that apaQTL-associated SNPs rs34402449 C>A, rs2683524 C>T, and rs11540872 C>G were significantly associated with susceptibility to bladder cancer (rs34402449: OR = 1.355, 95% confidence interval CI: 1.159–1.583, P = 1.33 × 10⁻⁴; rs2683524: OR = 1.378, 95% CI: 1.164–1.632, P = 2.03 × 10⁻⁴; rs11540872: OR = 1.472, 95% CI: 1.193–1.815, P = 3.06 × 10⁻⁴). Cumulative effect analysis showed that the number of risk genotypes and smoking status were significantly associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer (P_trend = 2.87 × 10⁻¹²). We found that PRR13, being demonstrated the most significant effect on cell proliferation in bladder cancer cell lines, was more highly expressed in bladder cancer tissues than in adjacent normal tissues. Moreover, the rs2683524 T allele was correlated with shorter 3′ untranslated regions of PRR13 and increased PRR13 expression levels. Collectively, our findings have provided informative apaQTL resources and insights into the regulatory mechanisms linking apaQTL-associated variants to bladder cancer risk.