Effects of FGFR1 Gene Polymorphisms on the Risk of Breast Cancer and FGFR1 Protein Expression.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1) is widely considered to play an important role in mammary carcinogenesis. Some common variants in FGFR1 might be associated with its expression, and further affect breast cancer risk. The aim of this study was to investigate effects of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in FGFR1 on breast cancer susceptibility and FGFR1 protein expression.

METHODS: SNPs rs17182023, rs17175624 and rs10958704 in FGFR1 were genotyped in 747 breast cancer cases and 716 healthy controls by SNaPshot method. The associations between SNPs and breast cancer were examined by logistic regression. Immunohistochemistry(IHC) was used to detect FGFR1 protein expression, and the association of FGFR1 polymorphisms with its protein expression was analyzed by Pearson's chi-square test. Additionally, Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to evaluate the association between FGFR1 protein expression and breast cancer prognosis.

RESULTS: The minor allele of rs17182023 in FGFR1 was significantly associated with reduced breast cancer risk, with an odds ratio of 0.800 (95%CI = 0.684-0.935). No significant associations were detected between other SNPs and breast cancer. Moreover, rs17182023 was correlated to FGFR1 protein expression (P = 0.006), and patients with high FGFR1 protein expression tended to have poor outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS: SNP rs17182023 was correlated to reduced breast cancer risk, and was associated with FGFR1 protein expression. High FGFR1 protein expression was an independent risk factor of breast cancer, and resulted in poor prognosis.