Although the common polymorphisms associated with risk of developing prostate cancer have been investigated in a number of GWAS studies, the role of genetic variation in determining disease aggressiveness has not been well studied. We had previously identified polymorphisms near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 as being associated with disease aggressiveness and as part of a large meta-analysis of more than 25,000 cases, we have now extended that work showing that this polymorphism is associated with aggressive and high-grade prostate cancer. Few genetic risk factors have been uncovered that contribute specifically to the racial disparity in prostate cancer observed in African Americans. With the advent of Ancestry Informative Marker (AIM) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panels and powerful genetic strategies such as Mapping by Admixture Linkage Disequilibrium (MALD) it is possible to discover genes that underlie ethnic variation in disease risk. Using these markers in the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project we have identified areas on chromosome 8q24.21 and 11p13 associated with increased risk. Finally, we show that several common polymorphisms in one-carbon metabolism genes were associated with either DNA methylation at repetitive elements, or directly with breast cancer risk. DNA methylation can change in response to environmental exposures, such as chemical pollutants, diet, and other lifestyle factors. This study links changes in blood DNA methylation to future risk of developing cancer and may suggest lifestyle strategies for lowering risk.

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19
Fiscal Year
2015
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Indirect Cost
Name
U.S. National Inst of Environ Hlth Scis
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O'Brien, Katie M; Sandler, Dale P; Xu, Zongli et al. (2018) Vitamin D, DNA methylation, and breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res 20:70
Herceg, Zdenko; Ghantous, Akram; Wild, Christopher P et al. (2018) Roadmap for investigating epigenome deregulation and environmental origins of cancer. Int J Cancer 142:874-882
Wu, Lang; Shi, Wei; Long, Jirong et al. (2018) A transcriptome-wide association study of 229,000 women identifies new candidate susceptibility genes for breast cancer. Nat Genet 50:968-978
O'Brien, Katie M; Sandler, Dale P; Shi, Min et al. (2018) Genome-Wide Association Study of Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in US Women. Front Genet 9:67
O'Brien, Katie M; Sandler, Dale P; Kinyamu, H Karimi et al. (2017) Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Vitamin D-Related Genes May Modify Vitamin D-Breast Cancer Associations. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 26:1761-1771
Wilson, L E; Harlid, S; Xu, Z et al. (2017) An epigenome-wide study of body mass index and DNA methylation in blood using participants from the Sister Study cohort. Int J Obes (Lond) 41:194-199
Michailidou, Kyriaki (see original citation for additional authors) (2017) Association analysis identifies 65 new breast cancer risk loci. Nature 551:92-94
Sandler, Dale P; Hodgson, M Elizabeth; Deming-Halverson, Sandra L et al. (2017) The Sister Study Cohort: Baseline Methods and Participant Characteristics. Environ Health Perspect 125:127003
Amos, Christopher I; Dennis, Joe; Wang, Zhaoming et al. (2017) The OncoArray Consortium: A Network for Understanding the Genetic Architecture of Common Cancers. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 26:126-135
Milne, Roger L (see original citation for additional authors) (2017) Identification of ten variants associated with risk of estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer. Nat Genet 49:1767-1778

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