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Cancer Resources > Cancer News > 2007 > July

Variant on chromosome 8 tied to colorectal cancer

Last Updated: 2007-07-09 16:12:24 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Genome-wide testing has identified a variant on chromosome 8 that appears to increase susceptibility to colorectal cancer, according to the results of three studies reported in the July 8th advance online issue of Nature Genetics.

In one study, Dr. Ian Tomlinson, from Cancer Research UK in London, and colleagues compared 550,000 tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 930 familial colorectal tumor cases and 960 controls. This led to the identification of one variant at 8q24.21, designated rs6983267, that was highly associated with colorectal neoplasia.

Heterozygosity and homozygosity for this variant raised the risk of colorectal cancer by 27% and 47%, respectively. The elevated risk of malignancy appeared to be mediated through increased development of adenomas.

In a similar study, Dr. Christopher A. Haiman, from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and colleagues point out that variants on chromosome 8q24 have typically been linked to prostate cancer. As in the first study, they show that the rs6983267 variant seems to raise the risk of colorectal cancer.

Further analysis revealed other variants in the region that appeared to affect the risk of colorectal cancer as well, the authors note.

"Our results show that variants at 8q24 have different effects on cancer development that depend on the tissue type," they add.

In a third study, Dr. Thomas J. Hudson, from The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Toronto, and colleagues confirm that chromosome 8q24 is a susceptibility locus for colorectal cancer. In addition, a locus on chromosome 9p24 was tied to colorectal cancer.

"This study shows definitively that a locus on chromosome 8q close to SNPs rs10505477 and rs6983267, within a small region of tight linkage disequilibrium, is associated with colorectal cancer susceptibility," the authors conclude. "Although it is unlikely that this finding in itself will have direct clinical relevance for the individual, this discovery will lead to better understanding of colorectal cancer biology and disease causation."

Nat Genet 2007.

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