Screening and association testing of coding variation in steroid hormone coactivator and corepressor genes in relationship with breast cancer risk in multiple populations.

摘要

Increased levels of steroid hormones have been implicated in the etiology of breast cancer. In a multiethnic panel we sequenced coding regions of 17 candidate coactivator and corepressor genes thought to interact with one's susceptibility to steroid hormone levels. Using unconditional logistic regression we evaluated whether nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these 17 genes were associated with breast cancer risk. While we did not find more than expected statistically significant associations of these SNPs with breast cancer risk in our combined, ethnic-specific, and phenotypic analyses, further studies should still be done to reproduce our findings as well as hopefully provide greater insight to the association of the rare SNPs and breast cancer risk. Survival analyses and mutational molecular sensitivity studies of the amino acid changes imposed by these SNPs, by measuring response to various breast cancer treatments, might also prove to be useful for improving phenotypic patient treatment.