| 1. |
- Jiang, X., et al.
(författare)
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Shared heritability and functional enrichment across six solid cancers
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Quantifying the genetic correlation between cancers can provide important insights into the mechanisms driving cancer etiology. Using genome-wide association study summary statistics across six cancer types based on a total of 296,215 cases and 301,319 controls of European ancestry, here we estimate the pair-wise genetic correlations between breast, colorectal, head/neck, lung, ovary and prostate cancer, and between cancers and 38 other diseases. We observed statistically significant genetic correlations between lung and head/neck cancer (r(g) = 0.57, p = 4.6 x 10(-8)), breast and ovarian cancer (r(g) = 0.24, p = 7 x 10(-5)), breast and lung cancer (r(g) = 0.18, p = 1.5 x 10(-6)) and breast and colorectal cancer (r(g) = 0.15, p = 1.1 x 10(-4)). We also found that multiple cancers are genetically correlated with non-cancer traits including smoking, psychiatric diseases and metabolic characteristics. Functional enrichment analysis revealed a significant excess contribution of conserved and regulatory regions to cancer heritability. Our comprehensive analysis of cross-cancer heritability suggests that solid tumors arising across tissues share in part a common germline genetic basis.
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| 2. |
- Sliz, E., et al.
(författare)
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Evidence of a causal effect of genetic tendency to gain muscle mass on uterine leiomyomata
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 14:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Uterine leiomyomata (UL) are the most common tumours of the female genital tract and the primary cause of surgical removal of the uterus. Genetic factors contribute to UL susceptibility. To add understanding to the heritable genetic risk factors, we conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of UL in up to 426,558 European women from FinnGen and a previous UL meta-GWAS. In addition to the 50 known UL loci, we identify 22 loci that have not been associated with UL in prior studies. UL-associated loci harbour genes enriched for development, growth, and cellular senescence. Of particular interest are the smooth muscle cell differentiation and proliferation-regulating genes functioning on the myocardin-cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor 1A pathway. Our results further suggest that genetic predisposition to increased fat-free mass may be causally related to higher UL risk, underscoring the involvement of altered muscle tissue biology in UL pathophysiology. Overall, our findings add to the understanding of the genetic pathways underlying UL, which may aid in developing novel therapeutics.
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| 3. |
- Wahlström, Gudrun, et al.
(författare)
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The variant rs77559646 associated with aggressive prostate cancer disrupts ANO7 mRNA splicing and protein expression.
- 2022
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Ingår i: Human molecular genetics. - 1460-2083. ; 31:12, s. 2063-2077
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Prostate cancer is among the most common cancers in men, with a large fraction of the individual risk attributable to heritable factors. A majority of the diagnosed cases does not lead to a lethal disease, and hence biological markers that can distinguish between indolent and fatal forms of the disease are of great importance for guiding treatment decisions. Although over 300 genetic variants are known to be associated with prostate cancer risk, few have been associated with the risk of an aggressive disease. One such variant is rs77559646 located in ANO7. This variant has a dual function. It constitutes a missense mutation in the short isoform of ANO7 and a splice region mutation in full-length ANO7. In this study, we have analyzed the impact of the variant allele of rs77559646 on ANO7 mRNA splicing using a minigene splicing assay and by performing splicing analysis with the tools IRFinder (intron retention finder), rMATS (replicate multivariate analysis of transcript splicing) and LeafCutter on RNA sequencing data from prostate tissue of six rs77559646 variant allele carriers and 43 non-carriers. The results revealed a severe disruption of ANO7 mRNA splicing in rs77559646 variant allele carriers. Immunohistochemical analysis of prostate samples from patients homozygous for the rs77559646 variant allele demonstrated a loss of apically localized ANO7 protein. Our study is the first to provide a mechanistic explanation for the impact of a prostate cancer risk SNP on ANO7 protein production. Furthermore, the rs77559646 variant is the first known germline loss-of-function mutation described for ANO7. We suggest that loss of ANO7 contributes to prostate cancer progression.
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