Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key mediator of angiogenesis and as a result acts in tumor invasion. In this study, we investigate the frequency of alleles, genotypes and haplotypes for three VEGF single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in female breast cancer patients and healthy control group. We performed a case–control study including 214 female patients with pathologically proven breast cancer and 220 female age-matched healthy control subjects. We selected three VEGF candidate polymorphisms –634C/G (rs2010963), –460C/T (rs833061) and –1154A/G (rs1570360). Frequency of alleles and genotypes was determined by TaqMan real-time PCR allelic discrimination assay. The results have showed that there is not a significant difference in genotype and allele distributions of the VEGF –460T/C and VEGF –1154A/G between patients and controls. For –634C/G SNP, the frequency of –634G allele was significantly higher in patients than control group (P = 0.0003). However the frequency of –634C allele was significantly higher in control group than patients (P = 0.0003). When we stratified patient and control groups by age, we observed that the frequency of VEGF –634G/G genotype is significantly higher in patients older than 40 years compared with respective controls (P = 0.003). These findings suggest the association of –634G allele with the presence of breast cancer in our female population. Fe-male carriers with –634C allele show a protective effect against the development of this malignancy and women more than 40 years old with –634G/G genotype might be at increased risk of the disease. Further large-scale studies are required to confirm these findings.
Keywords: Breast cancer; Polymorphisms; Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)
