We investigated the role of three polymorphic alleles of the DNA repair gene XPC in a hospital-based case-control study of 294 Caucasian patients from Germany who had cutaneous melanoma and 375 healthy cancer-free sex-matched Caucasian control subjects from the same area.
In addition, there was some evidence of publication bias in the meta-analysis, and meta-analyses of the studies with large sample size did not find the obvious association between XPCLys939Gln polymorphism and cutaneous melanoma risk in Caucasians.
XPC, the main damage-recognition protein responsible for nucleotide excision repair of UVB damage to DNA, is lost or mutated in xeroderma pigmentosum group C (XP-C), a rare inherited disease characterized by high incidence and early onset of non-melanoma and melanoma skin cancers.