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Oxford University Press (OUP), Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 10(106), p. dju267-dju267

DOI: 10.1093/jnci/dju267

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The Effect on Melanoma Risk of Genes Previously Associated With Telomere Length

Journal article published in 2014 by Mark M. Iles, D. Timothy Bishop, John C. Taylor, and Qtwin Investigators Qmega, Study Group Sdh, D. Timothy Bishop, Giovanna Bianchi Scarra, Nicholas K. Hayward, Anne E. Cust, Alison M. Dunning ORCID, Mark Smithers, Jeffrey E. Lee, Peter Visscher, Eric K. Moses, Myriam Brossard ORCID and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Telomere length has been associated with risk of many cancers, but results are inconsistent. Seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) previously associated with mean leukocyte telomere length were either genotyped or well-imputed in 11 108 case patients and 13 933 control patients from Europe, Israel, the United States and Australia, four of the seven SNPs reached a P value under .05 (two-sided). A genetic score that predicts telomere length, derived from these seven SNPs, is strongly associated (P = 8.92x10(-9), two-sided) with melanoma risk. This demonstrates that the previously observed association between longer telomere length and increased melanoma risk is not attributable to confounding via shared environmental effects (such as ultraviolet exposure) or reverse causality. We provide the first proof that multiple germline genetic determinants of telomere length influence cancer risk.