Gastroenterology Research and Practice (Jan 2015)

Cumulative Small Effect Genetic Markers and the Risk of Colorectal Cancer in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia

  • Pablo Serrano-Fernandez,
  • Dagmara Dymerska,
  • Grzegorz Kurzawski,
  • Róża Derkacz,
  • Tatiana Sobieszczańska,
  • Zbigniew Banaszkiewicz,
  • Hanno Roomere,
  • Eneli Oitmaa,
  • Andres Metspalu,
  • Ramūnas Janavičius,
  • Pavel Elsakov,
  • Mindaugas Razumas,
  • Kestutis Petrulis,
  • Arvīds Irmejs,
  • Edvīns Miklaševičs,
  • Rodney J. Scott,
  • Jan Lubiński

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/204089
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2015

Abstract

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The continued identification of new low-penetrance genetic variants for colorectal cancer (CRC) raises the question of their potential cumulative effect among compound carriers. We focused on 6 SNPs (rs380284, rs4464148, rs4779584, rs4939827, rs6983267, and rs10795668), already described as risk markers, and tested their possible independent and combined contribution to CRC predisposition. Material and Methods. DNA was collected and genotyped from 2330 unselected consecutive CRC cases and controls from Estonia (166 cases and controls), Latvia (81 cases and controls), Lithuania (123 cases and controls), and Poland (795 cases and controls). Results. Beyond individual effects, the analysis revealed statistically significant linear cumulative effects for these 6 markers for all samples except of the Latvian one (corrected P value = 0.018 for the Estonian, corrected P value = 0.0034 for the Lithuanian, and corrected P value = 0.0076 for the Polish sample). Conclusions. The significant linear cumulative effects demonstrated here support the idea of using sets of low-risk markers for delimiting new groups with high-risk of CRC in clinical practice that are not carriers of the usual CRC high-risk markers.