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The emerging landscape of breast cancer susceptibility

Nature Genetics volume 40, pages 17–22 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The genetic basis of inherited predisposition to breast cancer has been assiduously investigated for the past two decades and has been the subject of several recent discoveries. Three reasonably well-defined classes of breast cancer susceptibility alleles with different levels of risk and prevalence in the population have become apparent: rare high-penetrance alleles, rare moderate-penetrance alleles and common low-penetrance alleles. The contribution of each component to breast cancer predisposition is still to be fully explored, as are the phenotypic characteristics of the cancers associated with them, the ways in which they interact, much of their biology and their clinical utility. These recent advances herald a new chapter in the exploration of susceptibility to breast cancer and are likely to provide insights relevant to other common, heterogeneous diseases.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to C. Turnbull and R. Scott for their critical reading of the manuscript and helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael R. Stratton and Nazneen Rahman are at the Section of Cancer Genetics, Institute of Cancer Research, 15 Cotswold Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5NG, UK.,

    Michael R Stratton & Nazneen Rahman

  2. Michael R. Stratton is in the Cancer Genome Project, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK. nazneen.rahman@icr.ac.uk,

    Michael R Stratton

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Stratton, M., Rahman, N. The emerging landscape of breast cancer susceptibility. Nat Genet 40, 17–22 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2007.53

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