Association between genetic variants of the VEGFR-2 gene and the risk of developing endometriosis in Northern Chinese Women.

AIM

To investigate the association of tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR-2) gene with susceptibility to endometriosis.

METHODS

This study comprised 571 patients with endometriosis and 580 women in the control group. Five tag SNPs in the VEGFR-2 gene were selected using a Haploview program, and those SNPs were genotyped by a method of polymerase chain reaction and ligase detection reaction.

RESULTS

Statistical results show that there was a significant difference in the genotype and allele distribution of the 1192C/T polymorphism between the disease group and the control group (p = 0.041 and 0.017). The women carrying the T allele (C/T+T/T genotype) had a lower risk of developing endometriosis compared with the women with the C/C genotype (OR 0.75, 95% CI 0.57-0.99). There was no significant difference in the allele and genotype distribution of four other tag SNPs (1719T/A, +31C/T, IVS25-92A/G and IVS6+​54C/T) between the disease group and the control group (all p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggested that the 1192C/T polymorphisms on the VEGFR-2 gene might affect the risk of developing endometriosis in Northern Chinese women of Han ethnicity.