Genome-wide association analysis identifies three new breast cancer susceptibility loci.

Journal article

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. To date, 22 common breast cancer susceptibility loci have been identified accounting for ∼8% of the heritability of the disease. We attempted to replicate 72 promising associations from two independent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in ∼70,000 cases and ∼68,000 controls from 41 case-control studies and 9 breast cancer GWAS. We identified three new breast cancer risk loci at 12p11 (rs10771399; P = 2.7 × 10(-35)), 12q24 (rs1292011; P = 4.3 × 10(-19)) and 21q21 (rs2823093; P = 1.1 × 10(-12)). rs10771399 was associated with similar relative risks for both estrogen receptor (ER)-negative and ER-positive breast cancer, whereas the other two loci were associated only with ER-positive disease. Two of the loci lie in regions that contain strong plausible candidate genes: PTHLH (12p11) has a crucial role in mammary gland development and the establishment of bone metastasis in breast cancer, and NRIP1 (21q21) encodes an ER cofactor and has a role in the regulation of breast cancer cell growth.

Authors: Ghoussaini, M; Fletcher, O; Michailidou, K; Turnbull, C; Schmidt, M

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Nature genetics
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 312-318
• Publication date: 2012-03-01
• DOI: 10.1038/ng.1049
• EISSN: 1546-1718
• ISSN: 1061-4036
• Language: English
• Keywords: European Continental Ancestry Group; Gene Environment Interaction of Breast Cancer in Germany (GENICA) Network; Genome-Wide Association Study; Breast Neoplasms; kConFab Investigators; Principal Component Analysis; Netherlands Collaborative Group on Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (HEBON); Familial Breast Cancer Study (FBCS); Logistic Models; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Genetic Predisposition to Disease; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 21; Genetic Loci; Humans; Australian Ovarian Cancer Study Group; Female; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 12