Genetic polymorphism in the 3'-untranslated region of the E-cadherin gene is associated with risk of different cancers.

The genetic polymorphisms in E-cadherin gene (CDH1) may affect invasive/metastatic disease development by altering gene transcriptional activity. In this paper, we investigated the effect of 3'-UTR +54C/T polymorphism (rs1801026) in CDH1 gene on the risk and progression of several common cancers. Multiple completely independent case-control analyses of 1081 cancer patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), gastric cardiac adenocarcinoma (GCA), non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and cervical cancer and 1131 control subjects in northern Chinese populations. The results showed that the carriers with T allele were significantly decreased the risk of developing GCA, NSCLC, and cervical cancer, with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.67 (95% CI = 0.48-0.91), 0.68 (95% CI = 0.49-0.92), and 0.66 (95% CI = 0.48-0.92), respectively. There were no association between the frequency of genotype and the clinicopathological features of ESCC, GCA, and NSCLC, but the frequency of T allele was significantly lower in patients of stage III cervical cancer (P = 0.026). These results suggested that the 3'-UTR +54C/T polymorphism in CDH1 may be a marker for genetic susceptibility of cancer.