Susceptibility Loci Associations with Prostate Cancer Risk in Northern Chinese Men

Background: KLK3 gene products, like human prostate-specific antigen (PSA), are important biomarkersin the clinical diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa). G protein-coupled receptor RFX6, C2orf43 and FOXP4signaling plays important roles in the development of PCa. However, associations of these genes with PCa innorthern Chinese men remain to be detailed. This study aimed to investigate their impact on occurrence andlevel of malignancy.
Methods: All subjects were from Beijing and Tianjin, including 266 cases with prostatecancer and 288 normal individuals as controls. We evaluated associations between clinical covariates (age atdiagnosis, prostate specific antigen, Gleason score, tumor stage and aggressive) and 6 candidate PCa risk loci,genotyped by PCR- high resolution melting curve and sequencing methods.
Results: Case-control analysis ofallelic frequency of PCa associated with PCa showed that one of the 6 candidate risk loci, rs339331 in the RFX6gene, was associated with reduced risk of prostate cancer (odds ratio (OR) = 0.73, 95% confidence interval(CI) =0.57-0.94, P = 0.013) in northern Chinese men. In addition, subjects with CX (CC+TC) genotypes had adecreased risk for prostrate cancer compared to those carrying the TT homozygote (OR =0.64, 95% CI = 0.45-0.90, P = 0.008). The TT genotype of 13q22 (rs9600079, T) was associated with tumor stage (P=0.044, OR=2.34,95% CI=0.94-5.87). Other SNPs were not significantly associated with clinical covariates in prostate cancer (P> 0.05). Conclusions. rs339331 in the RFX6 gene may be associated with prostate cancer as a susceptibility locusin northern Chinese men.