Polymorphisms of Nucleotide Excision Repair Genes Predict Melanoma Survival

Melanoma is the most highly malignant skin cancer, and nucleotide excision repair (NER) is involved in melanoma susceptibility. In this analysis of 1042 melanoma patients, we evaluated whether genetic variants of NER genes may predict survival outcome of melanoma patients. We used genotyping data of 74 tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (tagSNPs) in eight core NER genes from our genome-wide association study (including 2 in XPA, 14 in XPC, 3 in XPE, 4 in ERCC1, 10 in ERCC2, 8 in ERCC3, 14 in ERCC4, and 19 in ERCC5) and evaluated their associations with prognosis of melanoma patients. Using the Cox proportional hazards model and Kaplan-Meier analysis, we found a predictive role of XPE rs28720291, ERCC5 rs4150314, XPC rs2470458 and ERCC2 rs50871 SNPs in prognosis of melanoma patients (rs28720291: AG vs. GG, adjusted hazard ratio [adjHR] = 11.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.04–40.9, P = 0.0003; rs4150314: AG vs. GG, adjHR = 4.76, 95% CI 1.09–20.8, P = 0.038; rs2470458: AA vs. AG/GG, adjHR = 2.11, 95% CI 1.03–4.33, P = 0.040; and rs50871: AA vs. AC/CC adjHR =2.27, 95% CI 1.18–4.35, P = 0.015). Patients with an increasing number of unfavorable genotypes had dramatically increased death risk. Genetic variants of NER genes, particularly XPE rs28720291, ERCC5 rs4150314, XPC rs2470458 and ERCC2 rs50871, may independently or jointly modulate survival outcome of melanoma patients. Because our results were based on a median follow-up of 3 years without multiple test corrections, additional large prospective studies are needed to confirm our findings.