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. 2025 Jan 1;36(1):126-138.
doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001795. Epub 2024 Sep 24.

Characterization of Additive Gene-environment Interactions For Colorectal Cancer Risk

Claire E Thomas  1 Yi Lin  1 Michelle Kim  1 Eric S Kawaguchi  2 Conghui Qu  1 Caroline Y Um  3 Brigid M Lynch  4   5 Bethany Van Guelpen  6   7 Kostas Tsilidis  8   9 Robert Carreras-Torres  10   11 Franzel J B van Duijnhoven  12 Lori C Sakoda  1   13 Peter T Campbell  14 Yu Tian  15   16 Jenny Chang-Claude  15   17 Stéphane Bézieau  18 Arif Budiarto  19   20 Julie R Palmer  21 Polly A Newcomb  1   22 Graham Casey  23 Loic Le Marchandz  24 Marios Giannakis  25   26   27 Christopher I Li  1 Andrea Gsur  28 Christina Newton  3 Mireia Obón-Santacana  29   30   31 Victor Moreno  29   30   31   32 Pavel Vodicka  33   34   35 Hermann Brenner  36   37   38 Michael Hoffmeister  36 Andrew J Pellatt  39 Robert E Schoen  40 Niki Dimou  41 Neil Murphy  41 Marc J Gunter  41 Sergi Castellví-Bel  42 Jane C Figueiredo  43   44 Andrew T Chan  45   46   47   48   49   50 Mingyang Song  47   51   52 Li Li  53 D Timothy Bishop  54 Stephen B Gruber  55 James W Baurley  19   56 Stephanie A Bien  1 David V Conti  2 Jeroen R Huyghe  1 Anshul Kundaje  57   58 Yu-Ru Su  1 Jun Wang  59   60 Temitope O Keku  61 Michael O Woods  62 Sonja I Berndt  63 Stephen J Chanock  63 Catherine M Tangen  64 Alicja Wolk  65 Andrea Burnett-Hartman  66 Anna H Wu  67 Emily White  1   68 Matthew A Devall  53 Virginia Díez-Obrero  69 David A Drew  70 Edward Giovannucci  71   72 Akihisa Hidaka  1 Andre E Kim  2 Juan Pablo Lewinger  2 John Morrison  2 Jennifer Ose  73   74 Nikos Papadimitriou  41 Bens Pardamean  19 Anita R Peoples  73   74 Edward A Ruiz-Narvaez  75 Anna Shcherbina  57   58 Mariana C Stern  44 Xuechen Chen  36 Duncan C Thomas  2 Elizabeth A Platz  76 W James Gauderman  2 Ulrike Peters  1   22 Li Hsu  1   72
Affiliations

Characterization of Additive Gene-environment Interactions For Colorectal Cancer Risk

Claire E Thomas et al. Epidemiology. .

Abstract

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common, fatal cancer. Identifying subgroups who may benefit more from intervention is of critical public health importance. Previous studies have assessed multiplicative interaction between genetic risk scores and environmental factors, but few have assessed additive interaction, the relevant public health measure.

Methods: Using resources from CRC consortia, including 45,247 CRC cases and 52,671 controls, we assessed multiplicative and additive interaction (relative excess risk due to interaction, RERI) using logistic regression between 13 harmonized environmental factors and genetic risk score, including 141 variants associated with CRC risk.

Results: There was no evidence of multiplicative interaction between environmental factors and genetic risk score. There was additive interaction where, for individuals with high genetic susceptibility, either heavy drinking (RERI = 0.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.13, 0.36), ever smoking (0.11 [0.05, 0.16]), high body mass index (female 0.09 [0.05, 0.13], male 0.10 [0.05, 0.14]), or high red meat intake (highest versus lowest quartile 0.18 [0.09, 0.27]) was associated with excess CRC risk greater than that for individuals with average genetic susceptibility. Conversely, we estimate those with high genetic susceptibility may benefit more from reducing CRC risk with aspirin/nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs use (-0.16 [-0.20, -0.11]) or higher intake of fruit, fiber, or calcium (highest quartile versus lowest quartile -0.12 [-0.18, -0.050]; -0.16 [-0.23, -0.09]; -0.11 [-0.18, -0.05], respectively) than those with average genetic susceptibility.

Conclusions: Additive interaction is important to assess for identifying subgroups who may benefit from intervention. The subgroups identified in this study may help inform precision CRC prevention.

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Conflict of interest statement

S.G.: Brogent International LLC, co-founder, not related to submitted work. J.B.: co-founder and employee of BioRealm LLC. BioRealm LLC offers data analysis services, unrelated to this study. M.G.: Research funding from Servier and Janssen, unrelated to this study. Other authors report no conflicts of interest.

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