The CHEK2 Variant C.349A>G Is Associated with Prostate Cancer Risk and Carriers Share a Common Ancestor.
Brandão A., Paulo P., Maia S., Pinheiro M., Peixoto A., Cardoso M., Silva MP., Santos C., Eeles RA., Kote-Jarai Z., Muir K., Ukgpcs Collaborators None., Schleutker J., Wang Y., Pashayan N., Batra J., Apcb BioResource None., Grönberg H., Neal DE., Nordestgaard BG., Tangen CM., Southey MC., Wolk A., Albanes D., Haiman CA., Travis RC., Stanford JL., Mucci LA., West CML., Nielsen SF., Kibel AS., Cussenot O., Berndt SI., Koutros S., Sørensen KD., Cybulski C., Grindedal EM., Park JY., Ingles SA., Maier C., Hamilton RJ., Rosenstein BS., Vega A., The Impact Study Steering Committee And Collaborators None., Kogevinas M., Wiklund F., Penney KL., Brenner H., John EM., Kaneva R., Logothetis CJ., Neuhausen SL., Ruyck KD., Razack A., Newcomb LF., Canary Pass Investigators None., Lessel D., Usmani N., Claessens F., Gago-Dominguez M., Townsend PA., Roobol MJ., The Profile Study Steering Committee None., The Practical Consortium None., Teixeira MR.
The identification of recurrent founder variants in cancer predisposing genes may have important implications for implementing cost-effective targeted genetic screening strategies. In this study, we evaluated the prevalence and relative risk of the CHEK2 recurrent variant c.349A>G in a series of 462 Portuguese patients with early-onset and/or familial/hereditary prostate cancer (PrCa), as well as in the large multicentre PRACTICAL case-control study comprising 55,162 prostate cancer cases and 36,147 controls. Additionally, we investigated the potential shared ancestry of the carriers by performing identity-by-descent, haplotype and age estimation analyses using high-density SNP data from 70 variant carriers belonging to 11 different populations included in the PRACTICAL consortium. The CHEK2 missense variant c.349A>G was found significantly associated with an increased risk for PrCa (OR 1.9; 95% CI: 1.1-3.2). A shared haplotype flanking the variant in all carriers was identified, strongly suggesting a common founder of European origin. Additionally, using two independent statistical algorithms, implemented by DMLE+2.3 and ESTIAGE, we were able to estimate the age of the variant between 2300 and 3125 years. By extending the haplotype analysis to 14 additional carrier families, a shared core haplotype was revealed among all carriers matching the conserved region previously identified in the high-density SNP analysis. These findings are consistent with CHEK2 c.349A>G being a founder variant associated with increased PrCa risk, suggesting its potential usefulness for cost-effective targeted genetic screening in PrCa families.