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A promoter polymorphism in the CASP8 gene is not associated with cancer risk

Nature Genetics volume 40, pages 259–260 (2008)Cite this article

To the Editor:

A common missense variant (D302H) in the CASP8 gene has been reported to be a common low-penetrance susceptibility allele for breast cancer1, highlighting the role of the immune system in this common cancer. More recently, Sun et al.2 identified a 6-bp deletion polymorphism (−652 6N del) in the promoter of the CASP8 gene that abolishes an Sp1 transcription factor binding site and is associated with decreased RNA expression in lymphocytes and lower caspase-8 and T lymphocyte apoptotic activity. This deletion variant was found to be associated with a ∼25% reduced risk (per copy) of lung, esophageal, stomach, colorectal, breast and cervical cancer in a Chinese population (4,938 cases and 4,919 controls, P = 4.3 × 10−16)2. To further examine the hypothesis that this polymorphism is a susceptibility marker for multiple cancers, we genotyped 7,161 incident cases of breast, prostate or colorectal cancer and 6,266 controls drawn from multiple populations with different ancestral backgrounds.

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Acknowledgements

The Multiethnic Cohort Study was supported by National Cancer Institute (NCI) grants CA63464 and CA54281. The Los Angeles–based case-control studies were supported by NCI grant CA17054 and by grants from the California Breast Cancer ReSEARCH Program (1RB-0287, 3PB-0102, 5PB-0018 and 10PB-0098).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 90089, California, USA

    Christopher A Haiman, Rachel R Garcia, Brian E Henderson & Anna H Wu

  2. Epidemiology Program, Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 96813, Hawaii, USA

    Laurence N Kolonel & Loïc Le Marchand

Authors
  1. Christopher A Haiman
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  2. Rachel R Garcia
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  3. Laurence N Kolonel
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  4. Brian E Henderson
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  5. Anna H Wu
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  6. Loïc Le Marchand
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher A Haiman.

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Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Table 2 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 94 kb)

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Haiman, C., Garcia, R., Kolonel, L. et al. A promoter polymorphism in the CASP8 gene is not associated with cancer risk. Nat Genet 40, 259–260 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0308-259

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