Genetic variants in XDH are associated with prognosis for gastric cancer in a Chinese population

Objective We explored the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs207454 and rs494852 located in xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH) and gastric cancer (GC) survival. Methods A total of 940 patients with gastric cancer were enrolled and genotyped using TaqMan allelic discrimination method. The Kaplan–Meier test and log-rank examine were used to assess the effect of genetic variation. Results Patients carrying rs207454 CC genotype had a longer survival time than those with the AA genotype (P = 0.042). The similar association was detected in the recessive model (P = 0.017). We conducted expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis and found that gastric cancer patients carrying rs207454 CC genotype had significant lower XDH levels than those with AA/AC genotype, suggesting that rs207454 polymorphism effected the expression of XDH. Additionally, the Kaplan-Meier curves showed that gastric cancer patients with high expression of XDH had remarkably poor survival outcome than those with low expression (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.29–1.82). Conclusions Genetic variants in XDH were associated with the survival of gastric cancer and may act as prognostic markers for individual suffered from gastric cancer.