Genetic variations of DICKKOPF family genes might not be associated with gastric cancer susceptibility.

Background: Recent studies have implicated that members of the DICKKOPF (DKK) were causally involved in large number of human cancers. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between the genetic variations of DKK family genes and the risk of gastric cancer (GC).
Methods: Six SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) of DKK family genes, including rs2241529 in DKK1, rs3733635, rs17037102 and rs419764 in DKK2, rs3206824 in DKK3 and rs2073664 in DKK4, were selected and genotyped by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and TaqMan SNP genotyping methods in 409 GC cases and 554 cancer-free controls in the Han population in eastern China.
Results: None of the six SNPs achieved significant association with the overall GC risk and stratified analysis by age, gender, smoking status, drinking status, tumor location and pathological classification confirmed these non-significant associations.
Conclusions: Our study indicated that the studied six SNPs of DKKs would not be the risk factors for GC in this Han Chinese population. Studies of larger population for different ethnicities will be needed to warrant our findings.