An expression quantitative trait locus variant for LKB1 gene predicts the clinical outcomes of chemotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: We conducted this study to identify regulatory variants in cancer-related pathway genes which can predict clinical outcomes of chemotherapy in advanced NSCLC, using a comprehensive list of regulatory SNPs prioritized by RegulomeDB.

METHODS: A total of 509 potentially functional SNPs in cancer-related pathway genes were evaluated. The SNPs were analyzed in a discovery set (n = 198), and an independent validation set (n = 181). The associations of the SNPs with chemotherapy response and overall survival (OS) were analyzed.

RESULTS: In the discovery set, 95 SNPs were significantly associated with clinical outcomes. Among the 95 SNPs, only rs10414193A > G in the intronic region of ARID3A, an eQTL for LKB1, was consistently associated with chemotherapy response and OS in the validation set. In combined analysis, the rs10414193A > G was significantly associated with worse response to chemotherapy (adjusted odds ratio = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.47-0.85, P = 0.002), and with worse OS (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.08-1.45, P = 0.004). Luciferase assay showed a significantly higher LKB1 promoter activity associated with rs10414193G allele compared with rs10414193A allele (P = 0.0009).

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that rs10414193A > G may be useful for the prediction of clinical outcomes of chemotherapy in advanced NSCLC.