ZDHHC3 as a Risk and Mortality Marker for Breast Cancer in African American Women

African American woman are 43% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women and have increased the risk of tumor recurrence despite lower incidence. We investigate variations in microsatellite genomic regions-a type of repetitive DNA-and possible links to the breast cancer mortality gap. We screen 33 854 microsatellites in germline DNA of African American women with and without breast cancer: 4 are statistically significant. These are located in the 3' UTR (untranslated region) of gene , an intron of transcribed pseudogene , an intron of ribosomal gene , and an intergenic region of chromosome 16. The marker in is interesting for 3 reasons: (a) the gene is located in region 3p21 which has already been linked to early invasive breast cancer, (b) the Kaplan-Meier estimator demonstrates that alterations are associated with poor breast cancer survival in all racial/ethnic groups combined, and (c) data from cBioPortal suggest that messenger RNA expression is significantly lower in African Americans compared with whites. These independent lines of evidence make a candidate for further investigation.