Strong significant association was found between rs11649743 G (OR = 1.138, p = 1.08 × 10<sup>- 12</sup>), rs3760511 C (OR = 1.214, p = 1.57 × 10<sup>- 19</sup>) and the prostate cancer risk;the GG, AG genotypes of rs11649743 also showed strong significant associations with the risk of prostate cancer (OR1 = 1.496, p = 3.32 × 10<sup>- 6</sup>; OR2 = 1.276, p = 7.82 × 10<sup>- 6</sup>).
We link prostate cancer (PC) risk SNPs rs11649743 and rs3760511 with elevated HNF1B gene expression and allele-specific epigenetic silencing, and outline a mechanism by which common risk variants could effect functional changes that increase disease risk: functional assays suggest that HNF1B is a pro-differentiation factor that suppresses epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in unmethylated, healthy tissues.