Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies pleiotropic risk loci for aerodigestive squamous cell cancers

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  • Corina Lesseur
  • Aida Ferreiro-Iglesias
  • James D. McKay
  • Yohan Bossé
  • Mattias Johansson
  • Valerie Gaborieau
  • Maria Teresa Landi
  • David C. Christiani
  • Neil C. Caporaso
  • Christopher I. Amos
  • Sanjay Shete
  • Geoffrey Liu
  • Gadi Rennert
  • Demetrios Albanes
  • Melinda C. Aldrich
  • Adonina Tardon
  • Chu Chen
  • Liloglou Triantafillos
  • John K. Field
  • Marion Dawn Teare
  • Lambertus A. Kiemeney
  • Brenda Diergaarde
  • Robert L. Ferris
  • Shanbeh Zienolddiny
  • Stephen Lam
  • Andrew F. Olshan
  • Mark C. Weissler
  • Martin Lacko
  • Angela Risch
  • Heike Bickeböller
  • Andy R. Ness
  • Steve Thomas
  • Loic Le Marchand
  • Matthew B. Schabath
  • Victor Wünsch-Filho
  • Eloiza H. Tajara
  • Angeline S. Andrew
  • Gary M. Clifford
  • Philip Lazarus
  • Kjell Grankvist
  • Mikael Johansson
  • Susanne Arnold
  • Olle Melander
  • Hans Brunnström
  • Stefania Boccia
  • Gabriella Cadoni
  • Wim Timens
  • Ma'en Obeidat
  • Xiangjun Xiao
  • Richard S. Houlston
  • Rayjean J. Hung
  • Paul Brennan

Squamous cell carcinomas (SqCC) of the aerodigestive tract have similar etiological risk factors. Although genetic risk variants for individual cancers have been identified, an agnostic, genome-wide search for shared genetic susceptibility has not been performed. To identify novel and pleotropic SqCC risk variants, we performed a meta-analysis of GWAS data on lung SqCC (LuSqCC), oro/pharyngeal SqCC (OSqCC), laryngeal SqCC (LaSqCC) and esophageal SqCC (ESqCC) cancers, totaling 13,887 cases and 61,961 controls of European ancestry. We identified one novel genome-wide significant (Pmeta<5x10-8) aerodigestive SqCC susceptibility loci in the 2q33.1 region (rs56321285, TMEM273). Additionally, three previously unknown loci reached suggestive significance (Pmeta<5x10-7): 1q32.1 (rs12133735, near MDM4), 5q31.2 (rs13181561, TMEM173) and 19p13.11 (rs61494113, ABHD8). Multiple previously identified loci for aerodigestive SqCC also showed evidence of pleiotropy in at least another SqCC site, these include: 4q23 (ADH1B), 6p21.33 (STK19), 6p21.32 (HLA-DQB1), 9p21.33 (CDKN2B-AS1) and 13q13.1(BRCA2). Gene-based association and gene set enrichment identified a set of 48 SqCC-related genes to DNA damage and epigenetic regulation pathways. Our study highlights the importance of cross-cancer analyses to identify pleiotropic risk loci of histology-related cancers arising at distinct anatomical sites.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere1009254
JournalPLOS Genetics
Volume17
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)1-19
ISSN1553-7390
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

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