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. 2021 May;58(5):305-313.
doi: 10.1136/jmedgenet-2019-106739. Epub 2020 Jun 16.

Population-based targeted sequencing of 54 candidate genes identifies PALB2 as a susceptibility gene for high-grade serous ovarian cancer

Honglin Song #  1 Ed M Dicks #  1 Jonathan Tyrer  1 Maria Intermaggio  2 Georgia Chenevix-Trench  3 David D Bowtell  4 Nadia Traficante  5 Aocs Group  6   7 James Brenton  8 Teodora Goranova  8 Karen Hosking  1 Anna Piskorz  8 Elke van Oudenhove  9 Jen Doherty  10 Holly R Harris  11   12 Mary Anne Rossing  11   12 Matthias Duerst  13 Thilo Dork  14 Natalia V Bogdanova  15   16 Francesmary Modugno  17   18 Kirsten Moysich  19 Kunle Odunsi  20 Roberta Ness  21 Beth Y Karlan  22   23 Jenny Lester  22   23 Allan Jensen  24 Susanne Krüger Kjaer  25 Estrid Høgdall  24   26 Ian G Campbell  5   27 Conxi Lázaro  28 Miguel Angel Pujara  29 Julie Cunningham  30 Robert Vierkant  31 Stacey J Winham  31 Michelle Hildebrandt  32 Chad Huff  32 Donghui Li  32 Xifeng Wu  32 Yao Yu  32 Jennifer B Permuth  33 Douglas A Levine  34   35 Joellen M Schildkraut  36 Marjorie J Riggan  37 Andrew Berchuck  37 Penelope M Webb  38 Opal Study Group  38 Cezary Cybulski  39 Jacek Gronwald  39 Anna Jakubowska  39   40 Jan Lubinski  39 Jennifer Alsop  1 Patricia Harrington  1 Isaac Chan  2 Usha Menon  41 Celeste L Pearce  42 Anna H Wu  43 Anna de Fazio  44   45 Catherine J Kennedy  44   45 Ellen Goode  46 Susan Ramus #  2   47 Simon Gayther #  48 Paul Pharoah #  49
Affiliations

Population-based targeted sequencing of 54 candidate genes identifies PALB2 as a susceptibility gene for high-grade serous ovarian cancer

Honglin Song et al. J Med Genet. 2021 May.

Abstract

Purpose: The known epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) susceptibility genes account for less than 50% of the heritable risk of ovarian cancer suggesting that other susceptibility genes exist. The aim of this study was to evaluate the contribution to ovarian cancer susceptibility of rare deleterious germline variants in a set of candidate genes.

Methods: We sequenced the coding region of 54 candidate genes in 6385 invasive EOC cases and 6115 controls of broad European ancestry. Genes with an increased frequency of putative deleterious variants in cases versus controls were further examined in an independent set of 14 135 EOC cases and 28 655 controls from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium and the UK Biobank. For each gene, we estimated the EOC risks and evaluated associations between germline variant status and clinical characteristics.

Results: The ORs associated for high-grade serous ovarian cancer were 3.01 for PALB2 (95% CI 1.59 to 5.68; p=0.00068), 1.99 for POLK (95% CI 1.15 to 3.43; p=0.014) and 4.07 for SLX4 (95% CI 1.34 to 12.4; p=0.013). Deleterious mutations in FBXO10 were associated with a reduced risk of disease (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.07 to 1.00, p=0.049). However, based on the Bayes false discovery probability, only the association for PALB2 in high-grade serous ovarian cancer is likely to represent a true positive.

Conclusions: We have found strong evidence that carriers of PALB2 deleterious mutations are at increased risk of high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Whether the magnitude of risk is sufficiently high to warrant the inclusion of PALB2 in cancer gene panels for ovarian cancer risk testing is unclear; much larger sample sizes will be needed to provide sufficiently precise estimates for clinical counselling.

Keywords: cancer: endocrine; genetic epidemiology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Power to detect association for 5951 cases and 6385 controls at a Type I error rate of 0.0001 by deleterious variant carrier frequency and effect size (OR).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Estimated cumulative risk (%) of ovarian cancer in a PALB2 deleterious variant carrier compared with population risks for England and Wales, 2016.

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