Human genetics
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Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in developed countries. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have successfully identified novel susceptibility loci for colorectal cancer. To follow up on these findings, and try to identify novel colorectal cancer susceptibility loci, we present results for GWAS of colorectal cancer (2,906 cases, 3,416 controls) that have not previously published main associations. ⋯ We observed marginally significant evidence for a second independent SNP in the BMP2 region at chromosomal location 20p12 (rs4813802; replication p value 0.03; combined p value 7.3 × 10(-5)). In a region on 5p33.15, which includes the coding regions of the TERT-CLPTM1L genes and has been identified in GWAS to be associated with susceptibility to at least seven other cancers, we observed a marginally significant association with rs2853668 (replication p value 0.03; combined p value 1.9 × 10(-4)). Our study suggests a complex nature of the contribution of common genetic variants to risk for colorectal cancer.