Identification of ten variants associated with risk of estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer

Milne, Roger L.; Kuchenbäcker, Karoline B.; Michailidou, Kyriaki; Ditsch, Nina and Rack, Brigitte (2017): Identification of ten variants associated with risk of estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer. In: Nature Genetics, Vol. 49, No. 12: pp. 1767-1778

Abstract

Most common breast cancer susceptibility variants have been identified through genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of predominantly estrogen receptor (ER)-positive disease(1). We conducted a GWAS using 21,468 ER-negative cases and 100,594 controls combined with 18,908 BRCA1 mutation carriers (9,414 with breast cancer), all of European origin. We identified independent associations at P < 5 x 10(-8) with ten variants at nine new loci. At P < 0.05, we replicated associations with 10 of 11 variants previously reported in ER-negative disease or BRCA1 mutation carrier GWAS and observed consistent associations with ER-negative disease for 105 susceptibility variants identified by other studies. These 125 variants explain approximately 16% of the familial risk of this breast cancer subtype. There was high genetic correlation (0.72) between risk of ER-negative breast cancer and breast cancer risk for BRCA1 mutation carriers. These findings may lead to improved risk prediction and inform further fine-mapping and functional work to better understand the biological basis of ER-negative breast cancer.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Medicine
• Subjects: 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• ISSN: 1061-4036
• Language: English