Common variants on chromosomes 2q35 and 16q12 confer susceptibility to estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.

Familial clustering studies indicate that breast cancer risk has a substantial genetic component. To identify new breast cancer risk variants, we genotyped approximately 300,000 SNPs in 1,600 Icelandic individuals with breast cancer and 11,563 controls using the Illumina Hap300 platform. We then tested selected SNPs in five replication sample sets. Overall, we studied 4,554 affected individuals and 17,577 controls. Two SNPs consistently associated with breast cancer: approximately 25% of individuals of European descent are homozygous for allele A of rs13387042 on chromosome 2q35 and have an estimated 1.44-fold greater risk than noncarriers, and for allele T of rs3803662 on 16q12, about 7% are homozygous and have a 1.64-fold greater risk. Risk from both alleles was confined to estrogen receptor-positive tumors. At present, no genes have been identified in the linkage disequilibrium block containing rs13387042. rs3803662 is near the 5' end of TNRC9 , a high mobility group chromatin-associated protein whose expression is implicated in breast cancer metastasis to bone.

The estrogen receptor alpha C975G variant in familial and sporadic breast cancer: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND: The estrogen receptor alpha (ESR1) mediates the effect of estrogen in target tissues. Estrogen is important in breast cancer development and several polymorphic variants in the ESR1 gene have been investigated for association with breast cancer. The C975G variant is the most extensively studied and has been suggested to be a risk factor. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The frequency of the C975G variant was investigated in 288 sporadic, 197 low-risk non-BRCA1/2 familial and 191 high-risk non-BRCA1/2 familial breast cancer cases and 653 controls. RESULTS: There was a lower frequency of the C975G variant in high-risk familial breast cancer cases compared to the controls (18% versus 22%, p=0.046). The odds ratio (OR) for the GG homozygotes was 0.2 (95% CI: 0.06-0.8) compared to the CC homozygotes. No association was seen with sporadic or low-risk familial breast cancer. CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicated that the common C975G variant may have an effect on familial breast cancer susceptibility.

The role of hMLH3 in familial colorectal cancer.

Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) is commonly associated with at least three currently known DNA mismatch repair genes: (a) hMSH2; (b) hMLH1; and (c) hMSH6. A majority of HNPCC families has identifiable mutations in hMLH1 and hMSH2. When these mutations cause an inherited risk of colorectal cancer, they are also most often associated with microsatellite instability in the tumors. Recently, hMLH3 was suggested to be causative in HNPCC. We screened 70 index patients suggestive of a genetic predisposition for germ-line mutations in hMLH3 with denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography. One frameshift mutation and 11 missense mutations were identified in 16 index patients (23%). Most families presented evidence against hMLH3 as a high risk factor in familial colorectal cancer, and most of the mutations were found in the low risk patients, suggesting hMLH3 to be a low risk gene for colorectal cancer. We demonstrate in one family that a hMLH3 mutation segregated with disease together with a missense mutation in hMSH2, which makes us hypothesize that these mutations work together in an additive manner and result in an elevated risk of colorectal tumors in the family. None of the tumors with hMLH3 mutations showed microsatellite instability, which demonstrates that hMLH3 does not make its contribution to carcinogenesis through an impaired DNA mismatch repair function.

A screen for germline mutations in the gene encoding CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) in familial non-BRCA1/BRCA2 breast cancer.

INTRODUCTION: The CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF), known as a versatile transcription factor and chromatin insulator and to be involved in X inactivation, has also been suggested to be a tumour suppressor on 16q. We investigated 153 patients with familial non-BRCA1/BRCA2 breast cancer for germline mutations in the CTCF gene. METHODS: Mutation screening of CTCF was performed by denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography followed by cycle sequencing. RESULTS: We found two sequence variants, 240G-->A in the 5' untranslated region and 1455C-->T (S388S) in exon 4, in five familial breast cancer cases. Three of these five cases had both variants. Cases and controls showed the same prevalence for the two variants, which were found in linkage disequilibrium in most cases and controls. CONCLUSION: The present study suggests that germline mutations in CTCF are not important as a risk factor for breast cancer.

BRCA1 mutations in a population-based study of breast cancer in Stockholm County.

The mutation frequency of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in women with breast cancer varies according to family history, age at diagnosis and ethnicity. The contribution of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in breast cancer populations, unselected for age and family history, has been examined in several studies reporting mutation frequencies between 1% and 12% by screening methods, population sizes, and to what extent the gene/s were screened differed in the studies. We wanted to clarify the proportion of breast cancer attributable to mutations in BRCA1 in an unselected breast cancer population from the Stockholm region. All incident breast cancer patients treated surgically in a 19-month period were eligible for the study and 70% (489/696) participated. Exon 11 of BRCA1 was screened for mutations using the protein truncation test, and the mutation frequency was estimated from that. In previous studies on high-risk families from Stockholm, more than 70% of the mutations were detected in exon 11. Two mutations were found, both in patients with a family history or their own medical history of ovarian cancer, giving a mutation frequency in exon 11 of 0.4% and an estimated BRCA1 mutation frequency of <1%. Mutations in BRCA1 in unselected breast cancer cases in our region are rare and likely to be found only in high-risk families. Our BRCA1 prevalence is the lowest of all studies on unselected breast cancer patients, probably reflecting the comparatively low rates detected also in high-risk breast cancer families from the region.

Definition of candidate low risk APC alleles in a Swedish population.

Many families experience an apparently inherited increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) similar to the known syndromes familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC). Besides these high-risk syndromes, approximately 10% of all CRC cases come from families with 2 affected 1st-degree relatives, and even 1st-degree relatives to a single case of CRC are at increased risk. Risk subjects from these families frequently show polyps at colonoscopy, which suggests the APC gene as a good candidate susceptibility gene for these attenuated polypotic syndromes. We used the sensitive DHPLC technique to search for possible predisposing germline mutations in the entire APC gene in 91 risk subjects from these high- and low-risk syndromes with unknown predisposing genes. Most exons were also screened for mutations in 96 normal controls and 96 colorectal cancer cases. In our study we probably have identified the most common APC variants in a Swedish population. Among 30 germline variants identified, 1 clearly pathogenic nonsense mutation and 11 putative pathogenic variants (10 missense and one 3' UTR) were found in 20 index patients (22%). Twelve silent as well as 5 intronic variants were considered nonpathogenic. Two of the missense variants found here, E1317Q and D1822V, have previously been related to a difference in risk of colorectal cancer. One variant, 8636C>A, located within the 3' UTR region of the APC gene, was suggested to constitute an additional low risk allele with a similar relative risk as the Jewish I1307K mutation (OR = 1.8; 95% CI, 0.96-3.40). The question of whether all the other variants confer an increased colorectal cancer risk warrants future large association studies.

CDH1 mutations are present in both ductal and lobular breast cancer, but promoter allelic variants show no detectable breast cancer risk.

Mutations and diminished expression of the E-cadherin gene (CDH1) have been identified in a number of epithelial malignancies. Although somatic CDH1 mutations were detected in lobular breast cancer with a frequency ranging from 10-56%, CDH1 alterations in more frequent ductal tumors appear to be rare. Here we have analyzed the coding region of CDH1 for mutations using denaturing high performance liquid chromatography and found 4 mutations in 83 ductal carcinomas (5%) and 3 mutations in 25 lobular carcinomas (12%). The germline of 13 patients with familial lobular tumors was also analyzed for mutations, but none were detected. In a case-control study, we also tested whether a variant adenine allele in the promoter polymorphism -161C-->A with a putative influence on the transcriptional activity of CDH1 in vitro confers any detectable risk of breast cancer. No significant difference in the allelic frequency between patients with breast cancer (326/1,152, 28.3%) and controls (190/696, 27.3%, p > 0.05; relative risk 1.05, 95% confidence interval 0.85-1.30) was found. A novel promoter polymorphism was identified at position -152, but the frequency of the variant cytosine allele was also similar in patients with breast cancer and controls (0.71% vs. 0.21%, p = 0.23). Transient transfection experiments using reporter constructs containing the nucleotide substitutions -161C/-152C and -161A/-152T showed only a slight decrease in the transcription activity compared to the wild-type construct. These results do not support CDH1 as a prominent low-penetrance cancer susceptibility gene, but indicate that CDH1 mutations contribute to the progression of both lobular and ductal tumors.