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. 2014 Sep 17;106(10):dju267.
doi: 10.1093/jnci/dju267. Print 2014 Oct.

The effect on melanoma risk of genes previously associated with telomere length

Mark M Iles  1 , D Timothy Bishop  1 , John C Taylor  1 , Nicholas K Hayward  1 , Myriam Brossard  1 , Anne E Cust  1 , Alison M Dunning  1 , Jeffrey E Lee  1 , Eric K Moses  1 , Lars A Akslen  1 ; AMFS Investigators; Per A Andresen  1 , Marie-Françoise Avril  1 , Esther Azizi  1 , Giovanna Bianchi Scarrà  1 , Kevin M Brown  1 , Tadeusz Dębniak  1 , David E Elder  1 , Eitan Friedman  1 , Paola Ghiorzo  1 , Elizabeth M Gillanders  1 , Alisa M Goldstein  1 , Nelleke A Gruis  1 , Johan Hansson  1 , Mark Harland  1 , Per Helsing  1 , Marko Hočevar  1 , Veronica Höiom  1 ; IBD investigators; Christian Ingvar  1 , Peter A Kanetsky  1 , Maria Teresa Landi  1 , Julie Lang  1 , G Mark Lathrop  1 , Jan Lubiński  1 , Rona M Mackie  1 , Nicholas G Martin  1 , Anders Molven  1 , Grant W Montgomery  1 , Srdjan Novaković  1 , Håkan Olsson  1 , Susana Puig  1 , Joan Anton Puig-Butille  1 ; QMEGA and QTWIN Investigators; Graham L Radford-Smith  1 , Juliette Randerson-Moor  1 ; SDH Study Group; Nienke van der Stoep  1 , Remco van Doorn  1 , David C Whiteman  1 , Stuart MacGregor  1 , Karen A Pooley  1 , Sarah V Ward  1 , Graham J Mann  1 , Christopher I Amos  1 , Paul D P Pharoah  1 , Florence Demenais  1 , Matthew H Law  1 , Julia A Newton Bishop  1 , Jennifer H Barrett  1 ; GenoMEL Consortium
Affiliations

The effect on melanoma risk of genes previously associated with telomere length

Mark M Iles et al. J Natl Cancer Inst. .

Abstract

Telomere length has been associated with risk of many cancers, but results are inconsistent. Seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) previously associated with mean leukocyte telomere length were either genotyped or well-imputed in 11108 case patients and 13933 control patients from Europe, Israel, the United States and Australia, four of the seven SNPs reached a P value under .05 (two-sided). A genetic score that predicts telomere length, derived from these seven SNPs, is strongly associated (P = 8.92x10(-9), two-sided) with melanoma risk. This demonstrates that the previously observed association between longer telomere length and increased melanoma risk is not attributable to confounding via shared environmental effects (such as ultraviolet exposure) or reverse causality. We provide the first proof that multiple germline genetic determinants of telomere length influence cancer risk.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Forest plot of estimated effect size (with a 95% confidence interval indicated by horizontal bars) for telomere score on melanoma risk in nine geographic regions (and combined result). The relative sample size of each group is indicated by the size of the squares. Exact effect sizes (betas from SNPTEST2) are given in the right hand column.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • RE: The Effect on Melanoma Risk of Genes Previously Associated With Telomere Length.
    Shen X, Zhan Y. Shen X, et al. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2015 Aug 26;107(10):djv237. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djv237. Print 2015 Oct. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2015. PMID: 26311298 No abstract available.
  • Response.
    Iles MM, Bishop DT, Barrett JH; GenoMEL consortium. Iles MM, et al. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2015 Aug 26;107(10):djv238. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djv238. Print 2015 Oct. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2015. PMID: 26311299 No abstract available.

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