Investigation of vascular endothelial growth factor gene Polymorphisms and its association with clinicopathologic characteristics in gastric cancer

Objective: Vascular endothelial growth factor ( VEGF) is known to be a potent proangiogenic factor. This study evaluates the potential association of three VEGF gene polymorphisms ( - 460T 1>C, + 405G 1>C, and 936C 1>T) with the susceptibility to and clinicopathologic characteristics of gastric cancer. Methods: The VEGF genotypes were determined using paraffin- embedded tissue from 413 patients who underwent a surgical resection and peripheral blood lymphocytes from 413 healthy controls by PCR- RFLP assay. Results: There was no difference in the allele frequency of - 460T 1 C polymorphism. However, for the + 405G 1 C polymorphism, the + 405C allele was associated with a significantly decreased susceptibility to gastric cancer [ odds ratio ( OR) 0.686; 95% confidence interval ( CI) 0.564 - 0.834]. Although there was no significant difference in the distribution of the 936C > T polymorphism between the two groups, the 936T allele was associated with a decreased susceptibility to gastric cancer ( OR 0.757; 95% CI 0.591 - 0.970). In the haplotype analyses, the haplotype TCT ( OR 0.405; 95% CI 0.263 - 0.624) was most closely associated with a decreased susceptibility to gastric cancer. However, no significant association was observed between the frequency of the genotypes or alleles and the clinicopathologic characteristics of gastric cancer. Conclusion: These observations imply that the VEGF gene polymorphisms may be associated with the susceptibility to gastric cancer. However, further studies of other VEGF sequence variants and their biological functions are needed to understand the role of the VEGF polymorphisms in determining the susceptibility to gastric cancer.