Vitamin D receptor genetic polymorphisms are associated with PSA level, Gleason score and prostate cancer risk in African-American men.

Background/aim: Several studies have revealed an association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the VDR gene and prostate cancer (PCa) risk in European and Asian populations. To investigate whether VDR SNPs are associated with PCa risk in African-American (AA) men, nine VDR SNPs were analyzed in a case-control study.

Materials And Methods: Multiple and binary logistic regression models were applied to analyze the clinical and genotypic data.

Results: rs731236 and rs7975232 were significantly associated with PCa risk (p<0.05). In the analysis of clinical phenotypes, rs731236, rs1544410 and rs3782905 were strongly associated with high PSA level (p<0.05), whereas rs1544410 and rs2239185 showed a statistically significant association with high Gleason score (p<0.05). Haplotype analysis revealed several VDR haplotypes associated with PCa risk. Additionally, a trend existed, where as the number of risk alleles increased in the haplotype, the greater was the association with risk (p-trend=0.01).

Conclusion: These results suggest that the VDR SNPs may be associated with PCa risk and other clinical phenotypes of PCa in AA men.