Contribution of excision repair cross-complementing group 1 genotypes to triple negative breast cancer risk

Compared with other subgroups of breast cancer, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is considered to be the one with the greatest invasiveness and metastatic mobility, and the highest recurrence rate. Considering the lack of predictive markers for TNBC, we aimed to examine the contribution of excision repair cross complementing-group 1 (ERCC1) genotypes to TNBC. The rs11615 and rs3212986 of ERCC1 were investigated and evaluated for their associations with susceptibility to breast cancer, especially TNBC, in Taiwan. In this study, 1,232 breast cancer patients (104 were TNBC) and 1,232 healthy controls were recruited and their genotypes at ERCC1 rs11615 and rs3212986 were revealed by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis. Our results indicated that genotypes of ERCC1 rs11615 (Ptrend = 2.2*10E-9), but not rs3212986 (Ptrend = 0.6181), were associated with breast cancer risk. In the allelic frequency distribution analysis, breast cancer patients carried the T allele of ERCC1 rs11615 a higher rate than the control subjects, further supporting the idea that ERCC1 rs11615 TT genotype is positively associated with breast cancer susceptibility. More importantly, the frequency of the ERCC1 rs11615 TT genotype was even higher among TNBC patients than among other subtypes of breast cancer patients (P = 0.0001, odds ratio = 1.73, 95% confidence interval = 1.15–2.63). The genotypes of ERCC1 rs11615 were not associated with Ki67 status. Our findings firstly show that the T allele of ERCC1 rs11615 can serve as a predictive biomarker for breast cancer and TNBC. We believe that ERCC1 could serve as a target for personalized treatment of breast cancer, especially for TNBC.