Abstract
Excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1), a DNA repair protein, is vital for maintaining genomic fidelity and integrity. Despite the fact that a mounting body of case–control studies has concentrated on investigating the association of the ERCC1 rs11615 polymorphism and breast cancer risk, there is still no consensus on it. We conducted the current meta-analysis of all eligible articles to reach a much more explicit conclusion on this ambiguous association. A total of seven studies involving 2354 breast cancer cases and 2193 controls were elaborately selected for this analysis from the Embase, EBSCO, PubMed, WanFang, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases. Pooled odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated in our meta-analysis. We found that the ERCC1 rs11615 polymorphism was significantly associated with breast cancer risk under all genetic models. When excluded, the studies that deviated from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE), the pooled results of what remained significantly increase the risk of breast cancer under the allele model (OR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.02–1.27, P=0.02), heterozygote model (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.06–1.44, P=0.007), and dominant model (OR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.05–1.41, P=0.01). This increased breast cancer risk was found in Asian population as well as under the heterozygote model (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.05–1.48, P=0.013) and dominant model (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.02–1.42, P=0.03). Our results suggest that the ERCC1 rs11615 polymorphism is associated with breast cancer susceptibility, and in particular, this increased risk of breast cancer existence in Asian population.
Highlights
Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in females and it alone accounts for 25% of all the cancer cases as well as 15% of cancer deaths amongst females [1,2]
An article was included in our meta-analysis if it met the following selection criteria: (i) the study evaluated the association between the Excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) rs11615 polymorphism and breast cancer risk; (ii) the study was an independent case–control study for humans; and (iii) genotype frequencies of case and control groups were stated in the article or could be obtained by contacting the authors
We found that there were two studies that deviated from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in this subset; further pooled results after excluding them indicated that the ERCC1 rs11615 polymorphism still increased the breast cancer risk under the heterozygote model (OR = 1.24, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.05–1.48, P=0.013) and dominant model (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.02–1.42, P=0.03) (Table 2 and Figure 3)
Summary
Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in females and it alone accounts for 25% of all the cancer cases as well as 15% of cancer deaths amongst females [1,2]. Numerous studies have shown that the genetic, endocrine, and external environments contribute to the occurrence and development of breast cancer [5,6]; the specific mechanisms amongst these multiple factors are still a mystery. A series of proteins assemble and respond to DNA damage in a stepwise fashion in these pathways, and the alteration of genes encoding such c 2018 The Author(s).
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