The EPIC-Norfolk Study
Common variants in the ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2 and TP53 cancer susceptibility genes are unlikely to increase breast cancer risk.
Breast cancer research : BCR 2007 ; 9: R27.
Baynes C, Healey CS, Pooley KA, Scollen S, Luben RN, Thompson DJ, Pharoah PD, Easton DF, Ponder BA, Dunning AM, and SEARCH breast cancer study
DOI : 10.1186/bcr1669
PubMed ID : 17428325
PMCID : PMC1868915
URL : https://breast-cancer-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/bcr1669
Abstract
Certain rare, familial mutations in the ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2 or TP53 genes increase susceptibility to breast cancer but it has not, until now, been clear whether common polymorphic variants in the same genes also increase risk.
We have attempted a comprehensive, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)- and haplotype-tagging association study on each of these five genes in up to 4,474 breast cancer cases from the British, East Anglian SEARCH study and 4,560 controls from the EPIC-Norfolk study, using a two-stage study design. Nine tag SNPs were genotyped in ATM, together with five in BRCA1, sixteen in BRCA2, ten in CHEK2 and five in TP53, with the aim of tagging all other known, common variants. SNPs generating the common amino acid substitutions were specifically forced into the tagging set for each gene.
No significant breast cancer associations were detected with any individual or combination of tag SNPs.
It is unlikely that there are any other common variants in these genes conferring measurably increased risks of breast cancer in our study population.