Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptor, VEGFR2, serve a critical role in angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, which are involved in the initiation and progression of malignancies. Specific single nucleotide polymorphisms of VEGF and VEGFR2 have been shown to modulate gene expression and influence malignancy aggressiveness. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the VEGFR2 rs2071559 (T/C) polymorphism is associated with the risk of developing nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and the aggressiveness of NPC in a southern Chinese population. A case-control study comprising 171 NPC patients and 184 healthy individuals was performed. Genotyping of the rs2071559 polymorphism was performed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction using TaqMan probes. Genotype and allele distribution of the rs2071559 polymorphism was not associated with the risk of NPC following adjustment for age, sex and ethnicity by multivariate logistic regression analyses. Regional lymph node metastasis was significantly correlated with the rs2071559 C allele and the related genotypes (OR 0.402, 95% CI 0.193-0.835, P=0.016; and OR 0.347, 95% CI 0.145-0.829, P=0.024, respectively). No correlations between genotype or allele distribution and the primary tumor size, distant metastasis, clinical stage, or histological type were observed. The rs2071559 polymorphism was shown to have an association with lymphatic metastasis in patients with NPC; however, the precise molecular mechanism should be elucidated in additional studies.
Keywords: nasopharyngeal carcinoma; rs2071559; single nucleotide polymorphism; vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2.