Wang et al (2002) reported the association of the Arg462Gln genotype with familial prostate cancer risk in a United States population. RNASEL encodes the 2′,5′-oligoisoadenylate-synthetase-dependent ribonuclease L protein (Zhou et al, 1993), and is involved in the interferon-regulated 2-5A system that regulates cell proliferation and apoptosis (Hassel et al, 1993; Castelli et al, 1998). Here, RNASEL is linked to prostate carcinoma.