Evidence for SMAD 3 as a modifier of breast cancer risk in BRCA 2 mutation carriers

Introduction: Current attempts to identify genetic modifiers of BRCA1 and BRCA2 associated risk have focused on a candidate gene approach, based on knowledge of gene functions, or the development of large genome-wide association studies. In this study, we evaluated 24 SNPs tagged to 14 candidate genes derived through a novel approach that analysed gene expression differences to prioritise candidate modifier genes for association studies. Methods: We successfully genotyped 24 SNPs in a cohort of up to 4,724 BRCA1 and 2,693 BRCA2 female mutation carriers from 15 study groups and assessed whether these variants were associated with risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. Results: SNPs in five of the 14 candidate genes showed evidence of association with breast cancer risk for BRCA1 or BRCA2 carriers (P < 0.05). Notably, the minor alleles of two SNPs (rs7166081 and rs3825977) in high linkage disequilibrium (r = 0.77), located at the SMAD3 locus (15q22), were each associated with increased breast cancer risk for BRCA2 mutation carriers (relative risk = 1.25, 95% confidence interval = 1.07 to 1.45, Ptrend = 0.004; and relative risk = 1.20, 95% confidence interval = 1.03 to 1.40, Ptrend = 0.018). Conclusions: This study provides evidence that the SMAD3 gene, which encodes a key regulatory protein in the transforming growth factor beta signalling pathway and is known to interact directly with BRCA2, may contribute to increased risk of breast cancer in BRCA2 mutation carriers. This finding suggests that genes with expression associated with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status are enriched for the presence of common genetic modifiers of breast cancer risk in these populations. * Correspondence: Amanda.spurdle@qimr.edu.au † Contributed equally Division of Genetics and Population Health, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, 300 Herston Road, Brisbane 4029, Australia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Walker et al. Breast Cancer Research 2010, 12:R102 http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/12/6/R102 © 2010 Walker et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers are at increased risk for developing breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer. Estimates of the cumulative risk of breast cancer by age 70 years range from 46% to 87% for BRCA1 mutation carriers and from 43% to 84% for BRCA2 mutation carriers [1-6]. Evidence from these studies suggests that breast cancer risks in mutation carriers are modified by environmental or genetic factors. A number of large studies, facilitated through the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/BRCA2 (CIMBA), have evaluated associations between genetic polymorphisms and breast cancer risk in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers [7-15]. The candidate gene (or candidate SNP) approach for identifying potential risk modifiers has been successfully used to identify a SNP in the 5’ untranslated region of RAD51. Until recently, this finding has provided the most reliable evidence for a genetic modifier in BRCA2 mutation carriers [7]. A major disadvantage of using this approach to identify common genetic modifiers of breast cancer, however, is the limited understanding of mechanisms and pathways that underlie breast cancer development in families carrying mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2. An alternative and powerful approach that can overcome such issues is the use of genome-wide association (GWA) studies to identify candidate SNPs. Analysis of breast cancer risk-associated SNPs identified by a large population-based GWA study of breast cancer [16] has shown that several of these SNPs also appear to modify risk in BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutation carriers [8]. Not all of the breast cancer-associated SNPs assessed have been found to modify risk in carriers, however, and some of the risk associations are specific for BRCA2 mutation carriers only and not BRCA1 [8]. While GWA studies specifically addressing risk for BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 carriers are a more direct approach to identifying modifiers of these genes using an agnostic approach, GWA studies require large sample sizes to identify genetic modifiers with confidence. To address the problem of inadequate sample size, the CIMBA was established in 2005 to link clinical and epidemiological data from many groups from around the world [17]. The GWA approach is still limited, however, in that study designs involve predefined stringent selection criteria for which SNPs identified from the initial whole genome scan are going to be analysed in subsequent replication studies, a study design enforced by current genotyping costs. Moreover, GWA studies are often limited in information about exogenous risk factors, such as environmental exposures, which confounds any effort to explore the effect of environmental factors in modifying gene-disease associations. Global gene expression analysis as a means to agnostically identify candidate genetic modifiers has the potential to prioritise SNPs for candidate genes for association studies. This may be particularly valuable given recent observations that SNPs associated with risk of cancer in the general population appear to reside in noncoding regions that may modulate gene expression. An alternative approach to prioritising SNPs and candidate genes for association studies in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers could rely on the selection of genes displaying associations with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation status at the expression level in response to DNA damage. In a previous study, we used a novel combinatorial approach to identify a subset of 20 irradiation responsive genes as high-priority candidate BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 modifier genes [18]. The expression levels of these genes were shown to be associated with BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutation status in irradiated lymphoblastoid cell lines from female carriers when compared against irradiated lymphoblastoid cell lines from healthy controls. Furthermore, each of the genes were tagged with one or more SNPs shown to be associated with breast cancer risk from the Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) Phase 1 Breast Cancer Whole Genome Association Scan [19,20]. In the present study we investigated the association of these polymorphisms, tagged to genes demonstrated in vitro to be involved in irradiation response, with risk of breast cancer for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. Materials and methods