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A common genetic risk factor for colorectal and prostate cancer

Abstract

Variants on chromosome 8q24 contribute risk for prostate cancer; here, we tested whether they also modulate risk for colorectal cancer. We studied 1,807 affected individuals and 5,511 controls and found that one variant, rs6983267, is also significantly associated with colorectal cancer (odds ratio = 1.22; P = 4.4 × 10−6) and that the apportionment of risk among the variants differs significantly between the two cancers. Comprehensive testing in the region uncovered variants capturing significant additional risk. Our results show that variants at 8q24 have different effects on cancer development that depend on the tissue type.

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Figure 1: Fine mapping in the region 128.47–128.54 Mb of 8q24.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the men and women who participated in these studies. We are grateful to L. Pooler, D. Wong, J. Neubauer, C. Schirmer and A. Waliszewska for assistance with genotyping, and to D. Altshuler, B. Berman, S. Greenway, M. Freedman, S. Myers, N. Patterson, J. Seidman for discussions and comments on the manuscript. The collection and genotyping of samples from the Multiethnic Cohort Study was supported by US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants CA63464 and CA54281. The Hawaii-based case-control study was supported by NIH grants CA60987 and CA72520 from the National Cancer Institute, United States Department of Health and Human Services. The Los Angeles-based case-control study was supported by grant P01 CA17054 from the National Cancer Institute. D.R. is supported by a Burroughs-Wellcome Center Development Award in the Biomedical Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

The studies were initiated by B.E.H., L.N.K., L.L.M. and A.H.W. The genotyping was performed under the direction of C.A.H., L.L.M. and D.R. Covariate datasets were generated by J.Y. under the direction of L.L.M. The statistical analysis was performed by C.A.H. with the assistance of D.R., X.S. and D.O.S. The manuscript was written by C.A.H. with the assistance of D.R. and all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Christopher A Haiman.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–2, Supplementary Tables 1–5, Supplementary Methods (PDF 290 kb)

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Haiman, C., Le Marchand, L., Yamamato, J. et al. A common genetic risk factor for colorectal and prostate cancer. Nat Genet 39, 954–956 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng2098

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