Targeted Resequencing of the Coding Sequence of 38 Genes Near Breast Cancer GWAS Loci in a Large Case-Control Study

Abstract

Background: Genes regulated by breast cancer risk alleles identified through genome-wide association studies (GWAS) may harbor rare coding risk alleles.

Methods: We sequenced the coding regions for 38 genes within 500 kb of 38 lead GWAS SNPs in 13,538 breast cancer cases and 5,518 controls.

Results: Truncating variants in these genes were rare, and were not associated with breast cancer risk. Burden testing of rare missense variants highlighted 5 genes with some suggestion of an association with breast cancer, although none met the multiple testing thresholds: MKL1, FTO, NEK10, MDM4, and COX11. Six common alleles in COX11, MAP3K1 (two), and NEK10 (three) were associated at the P < 0.0001 significance level, but these likely reflect linkage disequilibrium with causal regulatory variants.

Conclusions: There was no evidence that rare coding variants in these genes confer substantial breast cancer risks. However, more modest effect sizes could not be ruled out.

Impact: We tested the hypothesis that rare variants in 38 genes near breast cancer GWAS loci may mediate risk. These variants do not appear to play a major role in breast cancer heritability.