Published in

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

DOI: 10.1093/jnci/dju267

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

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

Journal article published in 2014 by Mark M. Iles, D. Timothy Bishop, D. Timothy Bishop, John C. Taylor, Nicholas K. Hayward, Myriam Brossard, Anne E. Cust, Alison M. Dunning ORCID, Jeffrey E. Lee, Eric K. Moses, Investigators Amfs, Lars A. Akslen, Per Arne Andresen, Marie-Francoise Avril, Tadeusz Debniak and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Policy details
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.