Association Between VHL Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (rs779805) and the Susceptibility to Prostate Cancer in Chinese

The Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene is a crucial regulator of the hypoxia response pathway and plays an important role in tumorigenesis, particularly in tumor growth and vascularization. We hypothesize that polymorphisms in the functional region of VHL may influence susceptibility to prostate cancer (PCa). We genotyped a potentially functional polymorphism (rs779805) in 5' UTR region of VHL in a case-control study of 665 PCa patients and 715 cancer-free controls in a Chinese population using the Taqman assay. The genetic associations between the incidence and progression of PCa were assessed by logistic regression. We observed that the rs779805 A > G polymorphism was significantly associated with risk for PCa. Compared with the AA genotype, the AG and AG/GG genotypes were associated with decreased risk of PCa (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.79, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.62-0.99, and adjusted OR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.61-0.95, respectively). Further, this decreased risk was more pronounced in the subgroups of nonsmokers (OR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.54-0.98), nondrinkers (OR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.54-0.91) and patients without family history of cancer (OR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.57-0.92). In addition, the decreased risk associated with rs779805 variant genotypes (AG/GG) was more pronounced among the prostate specific antigen (PSA) > 20 ng/mL subgroup (OR = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.49-0.95). Our findings suggest that the rs779805 A > G polymorphism in VHL may confer susceptibility to PCa in the Chinese population.