Genome-wide association study identifies five susceptibility loci for follicular lymphoma outside the HLA region.
Skibola CF., Berndt SI., Vijai J., Conde L., Wang Z., Yeager M., de Bakker PIW., Birmann BM., Vajdic CM., Foo J-N., Bracci PM., Vermeulen RCH., Slager SL., de Sanjose S., Wang SS., Linet MS., Salles G., Lan Q., Severi G., Hjalgrim H., Lightfoot T., Melbye M., Gu J., Ghesquières H., Link BK., Morton LM., Holly EA., Smith A., Tinker LF., Teras LR., Kricker A., Becker N., Purdue MP., Spinelli JJ., Zhang Y., Giles GG., Vineis P., Monnereau A., Bertrand KA., Albanes D., Zeleniuch-Jacquotte A., Gabbas A., Chung CC., Burdett L., Hutchinson A., Lawrence C., Montalvan R., Liang L., Huang J., Ma B., Liu J., Adami H-O., Glimelius B., Ye Y., Nowakowski GS., Dogan A., Thompson CA., Habermann TM., Novak AJ., Liebow M., Witzig TE., Weiner GJ., Schenk M., Hartge P., De Roos AJ., Cozen W., Zhi D., Akers NK., Riby J., Smith MT., Lacher M., Villano DJ., Maria A., Roman E., Kane E., Jackson RD., North KE., Diver WR., Turner J., Armstrong BK., Benavente Y., Boffetta P., Brennan P., Foretova L., Maynadie M., Staines A., McKay J., Brooks-Wilson AR., Zheng T., Holford TR., Chamosa S., Kaaks R., Kelly RS., Ohlsson B., Travis RC., Weiderpass E., Clavel J., Giovannucci E., Kraft P., Virtamo J., Mazza P., Cocco P., Ennas MG., Chiu BCH., Fraumeni JF., Nieters A., Offit K., Wu X., Cerhan JR., Smedby KE., Chanock SJ., Rothman N.
Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of follicular lymphoma (FL) have previously identified human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene variants. To identify additional FL susceptibility loci, we conducted a large-scale two-stage GWAS in 4,523 case subjects and 13,344 control subjects of European ancestry. Five non-HLA loci were associated with FL risk: 11q23.3 (rs4938573, p = 5.79 × 10(-20)) near CXCR5; 11q24.3 (rs4937362, p = 6.76 × 10(-11)) near ETS1; 3q28 (rs6444305, p = 1.10 × 10(-10)) in LPP; 18q21.33 (rs17749561, p = 8.28 × 10(-10)) near BCL2; and 8q24.21 (rs13254990, p = 1.06 × 10(-8)) near PVT1. In an analysis of the HLA region, we identified four linked HLA-DRβ1 multiallelic amino acids at positions 11, 13, 28, and 30 that were associated with FL risk (pomnibus = 4.20 × 10(-67) to 2.67 × 10(-70)). Additional independent signals included rs17203612 in HLA class II (odds ratio [OR(per-allele)] = 1.44; p = 4.59 × 10(-16)) and rs3130437 in HLA class I (OR(per-allele) = 1.23; p = 8.23 × 10(-9)). Our findings further expand the number of loci associated with FL and provide evidence that multiple common variants outside the HLA region make a significant contribution to FL risk.