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Multigene pathway‐based analyses identify nasopharyngeal carcinoma risk associations for cumulative adverse effects of TERT‐CLPTM1L and DNA double‐strand breaks repair
Author(s) -
Yee Ko Josephine Mun,
Dai Wei,
Wun Wong Elibe Hiu,
Kwong Dora,
Tong Ng Wai,
Lee Anne,
Kai Cheong Ngan Roger,
Chung Yau Chun,
Tung Stewart,
Li Lung Maria
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.475
H-Index - 234
eISSN - 1097-0215
pISSN - 0020-7136
DOI - 10.1002/ijc.28802
Subject(s) - bonferroni correction , nasopharyngeal carcinoma , single nucleotide polymorphism , biology , genetics , medicine , population stratification , oncology , genotype , genome wide association study , genetic predisposition , bioinformatics , gene , radiation therapy , statistics , mathematics
The genetic etiology of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and mechanisms for inherited susceptibility remain unclear. To examine genetic risk factors for NPC, we hypothesized that heritable risk is attributable to cumulative effects of multiple common low‐risk variants. With the premise that individual SNPs only confer subtle effects for cancer risk, a multigenic pathway‐based approach was used to systematically examine associations between NPC genetic susceptibility with SNPs in genes in DNA repair pathways and from previously identified cancer genome‐wide association study analyses. This case–control study covers 161 genes/loci and focuses on pathway‐based analyses in 2,349 Hong Kong individuals, allowing stratification according to NPC familial status for meaningful association analysis. Three SNPs (rs401681, rs6774494 and rs3757318) corresponding to TERT / CLPTM1L (OR 95% CI = 0.77, 0.68–0.88), MDS1‐EVI1 (OR 95% CI=0.79 0.69–0.89) and CCDC170 (OR 95% CI = 0.76, 0.66–0.86) conferred modest protective effects individually for NPC risk by the logistic regression analysis after multiple testing adjustment ( p Bonferroni < 0.05). Stratification of NPC according to familial status identified rs2380165 in BLM (OR 95% CI = 1.49, 1.20–1.86, p Bonferroni < 0.05) association with family history‐positive NPC (FH+ NPC) patients. Multiple SNPs pathway‐based analysis revealed that the combined gene dosage effects for increasing numbers of unfavorable genotypes in TERT‐CLPTM1L and double‐strand break repair (DSBR) conferred elevated risk in FH+ and sporadic NPC patients (ORs per allele, 95% CIs = 1.37, 1.22–1.55, p Bonferroni = 5.00 × 10 −6 ; 1.17, 1.09–1.26, p Bonferroni = 4.58 × 10 −4 , respectively, in TERT /NHEJ pathways). Our data suggested cumulative increased NPC risk associations with TERT‐CLPTM1L and DSBR pathways contribute to genetic susceptibility to NPC and have potential translational relevance for patient stratification and therapeutics.