Diffuse gliomas classified by 1p/19q co-deletion, TERT promoter and IDH mutation status are associated with specific genetic risk loci

Abstract

Recent genome-wide association studies of glioma have led to the discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at 25 loci influencing risk. Gliomas are heterogeneous, hence to investigate the relationship between risk SNPs and glioma subtype we analysed 1659 tumours profiled for IDH mutation, TERT promoter mutation and 1p/19q co-deletion. These data allowed definition of five molecular subgroups of glioma: triple-positive (IDH mutated, 1p/19q co-deletion, TERT promoter mutated); TERT-IDH (IDH mutated, TERT promoter mutated, 1p/19q-wild-type); IDH-only (IDH mutated, 1p/19q wild-type, TERT promoter wild-type); triple-negative (IDH wild-type, 1p/19q wild-type, TERT promoter wild-type) and TERT-only (TERT promoter mutated, IDH wild-type, 1p/19q wild-type). Most glioma risk loci showed subtype specificity: (1) the 8q24.21 SNP for triple-positive glioma; (2) 5p15.33, 9p21.3, 17p13.1 and 20q13.33 SNPs for TERT-only glioma; (3) 1q44, 2q33.3, 3p14.1, 11q21, 11q23.3, 14q12, and 15q24.2 SNPs for IDH mutated glioma. To link risk SNPs to target candidate genes we analysed Hi-C and gene expression data, highlighting the potential role of IDH1 at 2q33.3, MYC at 8q24.21 and STMN3 at 20q13.33. Our observations provide further insight into the nature of susceptibility to glioma.

Fig. 1

Molecular classification of diffuse glioma and frequency of each subgroup in the TCGA, French-GWAS and French sequencing case series

Fig. 2

Association between the 25 risk loci and glioma subgroup. Horizontal red line corresponds to an odds ratio of 1.0

Fig. 3

Summary of the relationship between glioma risk with molecular subgroup and associated biological pathways. The extent of the evidence supporting each candidate gene (ranging from an established role in glioma to largely speculative) is summarised in Table 3