Association of Gene Polymorphisms with Development of Cancer Risk Or Their Protective Role Associated with Some Mutant Alleles (Commentary‪)‬

Over the past decade, due to the advent of human genome project and its overwhelming success, there has been a great deal of interest in defining genetic polymorphisms and finding their associations with development of disease risks. However, to keep a consistent and balanced growth in this arena, one needs to have an in-depth knowledge about the extent of variations in phenotypes and their potential. Answers must be sought for questions, such as "In their ability to handle and rectify the DNA damage, how much do each individual vary from one another? To what extent do these variations play a role in making any individual susceptible to developing a higher cancer risk? And lastly, but more importantly, how far and to what limit genetic polymorphism can be held responsible for such variations?". In this issue, Mitra et al (1) report the biology of human cancer in relation to genetic polymorphisms. For the first time in 1969, the crucial role played by DNA repair in preventing cancer was conclusively demonstrated by Cleaver (2), when he identified a defect in the pathway of excision repair among patients with Xeroderma Pigmentosum.