Association between ERCC1 rs3212986 and ERCC2 rs13181 gene polymorphisms in NER pathway and the risk of bladder cancer in a Chinese population

We conducted a case-control study to investigate the association of ERCC1 (rs3212986) and ERCC2 (rs13181) gene polymorphisms with the susceptibility to bladder cancer. A total of 194 bladder cancer patients and 240 control subjects were recruited from the Zhumadian City Center Hospital between March 2012 and March 2014. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was taken to genotype ERCC1 rs3212986 and ERCC2 rs13181. A significant difference was found between the genotype distributions of ERCC1 rs3212986 between the two groups by chi-square test (χ2 = 6.01, P = 0.04). Unconditional logistic regression analyses showed that subjects carrying the CC genotype of ERCC1 rs3212986 were associated with a higher risk of developing bladder cancer than those carrying the AA genotype, and the adjusted OR (95% CI) was 2.05 (1.10-3.83) (P = 0.01). Moreover, we found that the CC genotype of ERCC1 rs3212986 had 1.8 fold risk of bladder cancer compared to the AA+AC genotype (OR = 1.80, 95% CI = 1.01-3.21; P = 0.03). However, we did not find any significant association between the ERCC2 rs13181 polymorphism and susceptibility to bladder cancer. In conclusion, we suggest that the ERCC1 rs3212986 gene polymorphism influences the development of bladder cancer in co-dominant and recessive models.