Association of single nucleotide polymorphisms in ERCC2 gene and their haplotypes with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide, occurs at a relatively high frequency in China. To investigate whether common excision repair cross-complementing rodent repair group 2 (ERCC2) variants (rs3916874 G>C, rs238415 C>G, rs1618536 G>A, rs1799793 G>A, and rsl3181 A>C) were associated with ESCC risk, a case–control study was conducted, including 405 cases with ESCC and 405 age and sex 1:1 matched cancer-free controls. The result showed that rsl3181 AC/CC genotypes was associated with an increased risk of ESCC (OR: 1.45, 95 % CI: 1.05–2.00), and two ERCC2 haplotypes G rs3916874 C rs238415 G rs1618536 G rs1799793 C rsl3181 (Hap5) and G rs3916874 G rs238415 A rs1618536 G rs1799793 C rsl3181 (Hap7) were associated with increased risk of ESCC (OR: 2.16, 95 % CI: 1.27–3.57 for Hap5 and OR: 3.72; 95 % CI: 1.89–6.63 for Hap7, respectively), while G rs3916874 G rs238415 G rs1618536 G rs1799793 A rsl3181 (Hap4) was associated with decreased risk of ESCC (OR: 0.47, 95 % CI: 0.35–0.71). Gene–environment interaction analysis by multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) software showed that there was an interaction among rs238415, rs1618536, and family history of cancer with a P value under 0.0001 (OR: 3.23: 95 % CI: 2.37–4.40). These results suggested that genetic variations in the ERCC2 gene were associated with risk of ESCC, and there was a significant interaction between gene polymorphisms and family history of cancer in the etiology of ESCC.