A Genome-wide Breast Cancer Scan in African Americans
Abstract
The focus of this proposal was to discover susceptibility loci for overall and estrogen-receptor (ER) negative breast cancer that are particularly important for women of African ancestry. Over the past four years, we conducted the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of breast cancer in African American women. For this effort, we were successful in establishing a consortium of breast cancer case-control studies with DNA available for genomic analysis. The GWAS, and subsequent replication genotyping of strong signals from stage 1, did not reveal any novel locus for overall breast cancer in this population. However, working with ongoing GWAS of ER-negative disease in European ancestry populations, we revealed two novel risk loci for ER-negative disease that are particularly important for women of African ancestry. We estimate that one of these loci may explain 20% of the greater risk of ER-negative disease subtypes, including triple negative disease, in women of African ancestry compared to women of other ancestries. The GWAS data have also been utilized to fine-map the more than 70 known breast cancer risk loci which has revealed generalizability of the known risk variants found in European and information that we believe will inform risk stratification in this population.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA574525
Entities
People
- Christopher A. Haiman
Organizations
- University of Southern California