Background: Liver cancer (LC) is the sixth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide, and its incidence rate is high in China.
Methods: In this study, we aimed to investigate the contribution of MIR137HG  (MIR137 Host Gene) polymorphisms to LC risk in a case–control study with 432 LC patients and 430 healthy controls. A logistic recession model was used to evaluate the effects of candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on LC risk. HaploReg v 4.1 database was conducted to predict the potential functionality of SNPs.
Results: The results revealed that rs17371457 and rs7554283 in the MIR137HG  gene were correlated with an enhanced LC risk under the allele (P  = 0.001 and P  = 0.043, respectively) and genetic models (P  < 0.05). When the sample was stratified by gender and age, statistically significant associations were found. Rs9440302, rs17371457 and rs7554283 were associated with an increased the risk of LC among individuals aged > 55 years (P  < 0.05); rs17371457 was related to higher LC risk in males (P  < 0.05). Similarly, the haplotype AG constituted by rs12333983 and rs3735451 significantly increased LC risk in Chinese Li population (P  = 0.043). Six SNPs distributed in MIR137HG  were successfully predicted as regulatory SNPs with different biological functions.
Conclusion: Our research firstly showed that MIR137HG  gene polymorphisms were implicated in LC susceptibility among Chinese Li population.
Keywords: liver cancer, genetics polymorphisms, MIR137HG , susceptibility