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

Nat Genet. 2012 Jan 22;44(3):312-8. doi: 10.1038/ng.1049.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

  • Meta-Analysis

MeSH terms

  • Breast Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Chromosomes, Human, Pair 12 / genetics*
  • Chromosomes, Human, Pair 21 / genetics*
  • Female
  • Genetic Loci / genetics*
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease / genetics*
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Humans
  • Logistic Models
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / genetics
  • Principal Component Analysis
  • White People / genetics