triple-negative breast cancer (tnBc) is a highly aggressive disease and of poor prognosis. it is very important to identify novel biomarkers to predict therapeutic response and outcome of tnBc. We investigated the association between polymorphisms in PARP1 gene and clinicopathological characteristics or survival of 272 patients with stage I-III primary TNBC treated with anthracycline/ taxane based adjuvant chemotherapy. We found that after adjusted by age, grade, tumor size, lymph node status and vascular invasion, rs7531668 TA genotype carriers had significantly better DFS rate than TT genotype carriers, the 5 y DFS was 79.3% and 69.2% (P = 0.046, HR 0.526 95% CI 0.280-0.990). In lymph node negative subgroup, DFS of rs6664761 CC genotype carriers was much better than tt genotype carriers (P = 0.016, HR 0.261 95% CI 0.088-0.778) and DFS of rs7531668 AA genotype carriers was shorter than tt genotype carriers (P = 0.015, HR 3.361 95% CI 1.259-8.969). In subgroup of age ≤ 50, rs6664761 TC genotype predicted favorable DFS than TT genotype (P = 0.042, HR 0.405 95% CI 0.170-0.967). Polymorphisms in PARP1 gene had no influence on treatment toxicities. After multivariate analysis, tumor size (P = 0.037, HR = 2.829, 95% CI: 1.063-7.525) and lymph node status (P < 0.001, HR = 9.943, 95% CI: 2.974-33.243) were demonstrated to be independent prognostic factors. our results suggested that polymorphisms in PARP1 gene might predict the DFS of TNBC patients treated with anthracycline/taxane based adjuvant chemotherapy.Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers and is the leading cause of cancer-related death in women around the world 1 . According to molecular profile, breast cancer was divided into several intrinsic subtypes: luminal-A, luminal-B, HER2-enriched, basal-like, and a normal breast-like group 2 . Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is defined as lacking expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). It accounts for 15-20% of all breast cancers and is characterized by enhanced aggressiveness, young age of onset and poor prognosis 3 . All intrinsic subtypes can be found in TNBC, but 50%-75% of TNBC have basal phenotype 4 . Recently, four to six distinct subtypes have been defined within TNBC, such as basal-like and claudin-low 5 . Chemotherapy remains the main treatment for TNBC, but the overall survival for metastatic TNBC is only 13-18 months 6 . Though PARP inhibitors showed promising effect in BRCA mutation patients, their effectiveness in TNBC need to be further verified. So it is very important for us to explore novel biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets in TNBC patients 7 .DNA damage caused by exogenous and endogenous factors plays an important role in carcinogenesis 8 . Multiple DNA repair pathways are vital for controlling DNA damage and maintaining genomic stability, such as base excision repair (BER) pathway 9 . Impaired DNA repair impacts upon carcinogenesis and response to DNA damaging radiotherapy and chemotherapeutics 10 . Po...