Nephrolithiasis is a common disorder worldwide. E-cadherin (CDH1) is involved in epithelial cell-cell interactions and plays important roles in the etiology of nephrolithiasis. We hypothesized that variants in the CDH1 gene are associated with risk of nephrolithiasis. In a hospital-based case-control study of 127 nephrolithiasis patients and 152 controls frequency matched by age and sex, we genotyped the functional -160C>A (rs16260) polymorphism and assessed its associations with risk of nephrolithiasis in a Chinese population. We found that the CA/AA genotypes were associated with a significantly decreased risk of nephrolithiasis (OR = 0.53, 95%CI = 0.32-0.87), compared with the CC genotype, particularly among subgroups of BMI > 24 kg/m(2) (OR = 0.38, 95%CI = 0.17-0.85), age ≤ 57 years (OR = 0.47, 95%CI = 0.24-0.93), and men (OR = 0.56, 95%CI = 0.29-0.99). Our results suggest that the CDH1 polymorphism is involved in the etiology of nephrolithiasis and thus may be a marker for genetic susceptibility to nephrolithiasis.