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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / GENETICS
Rat Mcs5a is a compound quantitative trait locus with orthologous human loci that associate with breast cancer risk












*McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, Department of Oncology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706;
Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53726; and
Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cancer Research UK Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Worts Causeway, Cambridge CB1 8RN, United Kingdom
Communicated by William F. Dove, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, February 23, 2007 (received for review October 31, 2006)
| Abstract |
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12,000 women). The minor alleles of rs6476643 (MCS5A1) and rs2182317 (MCS5A2) were independently associated with breast cancer risk. The minor allele of rs6476643 increases risk, whereas the rs2182317 minor allele decreases risk. Both alleles have a high population frequency and a low penetrance toward breast cancer risk.
breast cancer genetics | cancer epidemiology | comparative genomics | noncoding elements | rat models
90% of breast cancer risk to 50% of women (3). In most studies, candidate modifier genes are selected based on function, such as DNA repair or estrogen metabolism for breast cancer. Over 100 such candidate modifier genes have been tested in breast cancer case-control association studies (>400 SNPs); few show a consistent and significant association with risk in large sample populations (4). These results suggest the need for an alternative strategy to identify breast cancer modifier genes. Our laboratory has pursued the identification of candidate loci by using whole-genome linkage studies in inbred rat mammary cancer models, followed by fine-mapping in congenic rats. The rat was chosen because, similar to humans, it develops mammary carcinomas that are hormone-responsive and of ductal origin (5, 6). Using a backcross of [Wistar–Kyoto (WKy) x Wistar–Furth (WF)]F1 x WF rats, we identified four mammary carcinoma susceptibility QTL, Mcs5, Mcs6, Mcs7, and Mcs8, on rat chromosomes 5, 7, 10, and 14, respectively (7). The WKy allele of Mcs5 acts to suppress mammary tumor multiplicity in a susceptible WF genetic background and has been shown to consist of at least three clustered loci; among these, Mcs5a confers a phenotype of resistance to mammary cancer (8). Here we show that Mcs5a is a compound QTL located in a noncoding genomic region. We identified polymorphisms within the human genomic region orthologous to rat Mcs5a that significantly associate with breast cancer risk in women. | Results |
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50% for each congenic line O, WW, and XX (Fig. 1). The boundaries of the Mcs5a locus are given by the overlapping WKy sequences of congenic lines WW and XX, which define a genomic interval of
116 kb containing Mcs5a. By incorporating phenotypic data from additional congenic lines within the interval (lines LL and B3) we demonstrated that at least two genetic elements exist within Mcs5a. These two lines are essentially overlapping. The sequence (313 bp) in the interval between the last informative SNPs at the respective adjacent ends of lines B3 and LL is identical between WKy and WF strains. Interestingly, there is no independent phenotype of resistance in WKy-homozygous rats from either line LL or B3, suggesting that Mcs5a is a compound locus requiring two genetic elements, Mcs5a1 and Mcs5a2, to be WKy alleles to confer resistance (Fig. 1).
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The overlapping genomic regions of congenic lines LL and XX, which cover
84 kb, define Mcs5a2 (Fig. 1). This locus spans a region from within the first intron of Fbxo10, including its first exon and proximal promoter, to a location between the 5' UTR and the first coding exon of the uncharacterized gene, Frmpd1 (FERM and PDZ domain-containing 1; refs. 10 and 11). There was no difference in the amino acid sequence encoded by the first exon of Fbxo10, and the nucleotide sequence of the transcribed Frmpd1 5' UTR was identical between the WF and WKy rat strains. Using the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), genome browser and miRBase (The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute), we found no annotated microRNAs in the Mcs5a interval (12).
The transcript levels of Fbxo10 and Frmpd1 were found to be similar in mammary tissue from Mcs5a WF-homozygous and Mcs5a Wky-homozygous congenic rats, as was the expression of all other genes within an
1-megabase (Mb) region surrounding Mcs5a [Fig. 3 and supporting information (SI) Fig. 5). The expression of Fbxo10 and Frmpd1 also was quantified in several mammary abscopal tissues, including spleen, thymus, ovary, and brain. Among the Mcs5a WF-homozygous and WKy-homozygous congenic rat tissues tested, Fbxo10 was found to be differentially expressed only in thymus and Frmpd1 was differentially expressed only in spleen tissues of both control and DMBA-treated rats (Fig. 3 and SI Fig. 6). Neither gene was differentially expressed in ovary or brain (SI Fig. 6).
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93 kb on human chromosome 9 (Fig. 4). The human haplotype block structure of a 1-Mb region surrounding this area was determined (SI Fig. 7). Haplotypes from a single block (SI Fig. 7, block 4) in the MCS5A locus were tested for association with breast cancer risk in a Wisconsin case-control study (1,500 cases and 1,405 controls). Allele 4 of block 4.2, a subregion of this block (SI Fig. 8, block 4.2) that spanned SNPs rs10758440, rs999988, rs2182317, and rs2381718 was found to be marginally significant (SI Table 2) in the Wisconsin population. These four SNPs were further evaluated in the larger U.K. population (4,364 cases and 4,547 controls). The minor allele of rs2182317 (SNP-3) demonstrated a highly significant association, with a reduction in breast cancer risk (Table 1 and SI Table 3). The Wisconsin and U.K. populations combined (n = 11,779 women) yielded a heterozygous odds ratio of 0.86 [95% confidence interval (C.I.), 0.79–0.94], and a homozygous odds ratio of 0.77 (0.57–1.04). The uncorrected
2 trends test, stratified by study, yielded a P value of 0.0003 (Table 1), and, when corrected for multiple comparisons by using the conservative Bonferroni method, the P value was 0.001. It is emphasized that this limited correction for multiple comparisons resulted from needing to evaluate only a small number of human polymorphisms within a precise genomic region defined by a global linkage study using the rat, which unlike human populations has few stratifying variables.
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27-kb total sequence,
30% CNS) and the entire MCS5A1 region (
30 kb) were resequenced in 24 (12 cases and 12 controls) women from the Wisconsin case-control population (SI Data Set 1). These samples were chosen to be representative of the haplotype allele frequencies observed in the population. Resequencing data provided more extensive coverage of the region and resulted in the separation of haplotype block 4 into haplotype blocks A, B, and C (Fig. 4) based on r2 estimates. We found no polymorphisms in the MCS5A1 region that correlated to SNP-3 in the MCS5A2 region. We did find 12 SNPs, highly correlated to SNP-3, in the MCS5A2 region that localized to an
17-kb interval, which is
40 kb distal to the MCS5A1/MCS5A2 boundary (Fig. 4). This
17-kb sequence covers a region of FRMPD1 that includes the 5' UTR exon (Fig. 4). It is likely that the MCS5A2 causative genetic polymorphism resides either within, or in close proximity to, this reduced interval (SI Text). Like the rat model, no polymorphisms were identified within the FRMPD1 5' UTR in the human samples. Interestingly, resequencing of the distal
36-kb CNS of Mcs5a2 in the rat strains revealed that polymorphisms between the WKy and WF sequence occur only in the region orthologous to the SNP-3 correlated SNP region of humans (Figs. 1 and 4). We tested the additional genetic variation, revealed after resequencing the human regions, to determine whether a polymorphism within the MCS5A1 region associated independently with breast cancer risk in women. Seventy-two (19 not listed in dbSNP) MCS5A1 SNPs with the minor allele observed in more than a single individual were documented. These SNPs were "binned" into highly correlated (r2) groups of polymorphisms. Bins were screened for an association with breast cancer risk in the Wisconsin case-control population. The results (Table 1 and SI Table 4) identified one bin (rs6476643, rs10758441, and rs7042509; and an indel, 138-9899, on chromosome 9:37563886–37563887) that qualified for further testing in the second population. One SNP from this bin (rs6476643, SNP-A1) was evaluated further in the U.K. breast cancer case-control population. The combined results for SNP-A1 yielded an odds ratio of 1.05 (95% C.I., 0.97–1.13) for heterozygotes and 1.19 (95% C.I., 1.03–1.38) for minor allele homozygotes (Table 1). A trends test, stratified by study, was significant for the minor allele (P = 0.02). The polymorphisms in this bin are not highly correlated to any other variation (SI Data Set 1); therefore, any of these four polymorphisms are likely causative (SI Text). The human sequence variation correlated to SNP-A1 (rs6476643) in MCS5A1 is located at the beginning of haplotype block B and is localized to a 5.7-kb interval (Fig. 4).
| Discussion |
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In both rats and humans the elements responsible for altering cancer risk at these loci do not reside in protein coding sequence. Noncoding elements have previously been associated with evolutionary biological differences (13) as well as risk for complex diseases (14, 15). Mcs5a modulates the expression of both surrounding, uncharacterized genes in an immune tissue-specific manner. Thus, the identification of these two breast cancer risk modifier alleles illustrates the utility of mining natural genetic variation in model organisms to identify novel genetic polymorphisms and mechanisms associated with the etiology of common polygenic diseases in humans.
| Methods |
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4.45 Mb of WKy chromosome 5 sequence from 57,848,415–62,299,478. Line WW was expanded from an N13 line O recombinant that retained
0.66 Mb of WKy chromosome 5 sequence from 61634906–62299478. For gene expression analyses, female rats from congenic lines O and WW were compared with inbred WF and WF.WKy females. The WF.WKy line (N11F8–N11F10) is WF-homozygous at all known Mcs loci and was used to provide the Mcs5a WF comparison allele.
Female rats, 50–55 days old, were administered a single dose of DMBA (65 mg per kilogram of body weight) (ACROS Organics; Fisher Scientific, Pittsburgh, PA) in sesame oil by gastric intubation. Mammary carcinomas
3 x 3 mm were counted after 15 weeks of induction. Mammary carcinoma multiplicity data were analyzed by using the Mann–Whitney nonparametric test of StatView (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) for congenic line comparisons and the Kruskal–Wallis nonparametric test of the R statistical package (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Wein, Austria) followed by Conover–Inman multiple comparison procedure (17) for the cis vs. trans experiment.
Comparative Genomics. The Mcs5a rat chromosome 5 genomic region is based on the June 2003 genome assembly (UCSC, Genome Browser: www.genome.ucsc.edu) of SNP at chromosome 5:61634886C>T base position and the microsatellite marker (gUwm23-29) at the respective ends of the WKy Mcs5a allele delimited by congenics. The Mcs5a proximal and distal rat chromosome 5 base positions (chromosome 5:61634886–61751793) and the VISTA browser (http://pipeline.lbl.gov) were used to locate the human orthologous region on human chromosome 9 (37550841–37644624). Transcripts were found by using the UCSC and VISTA Rat and Human Genome browsers. Human/rat CNS in the MCS5A2/Mcs5a2 regions were identified by using the VISTA browser with settings of 90 bp and 60% identity. Resequencing methods are given in the SI Text. Polymorphisms observed in human resequencing data are listed in SI Data Set 1. Polymorphisms in SI Tables 5 and 6 (MCS5A1 and MCS5A2, respectively) have minor alleles that were observed in more than one individual and were not listed on the National Center for Biotechnology Information web site. Ninety-one SNPs that spanned a 1-Mb region on human chromosome 9 orthologous to the rat Mcs5a region were used to make the initial haplotype block map (SI Fig 7, SI Table 7, and SI Text). Subsequent human haplotype blocks A, B, and C (Fig. 4 and SI Figs. 9 and 10), based on the distribution of minor allele patterns (r2) observed after obtaining resequencing data, were defined in the initial haplotype blocks 4 and 5 (SI Fig. 7).
Quantitative RT-PCR (QPCR).
TaqMan QPCR primers and probes (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) were designed by using Primer Express v 2.0 (Applied Biosystems) according to developer's specifications. Primer and probe sequences are given in SI Table 8. cDNA was synthesized from 2 µg of total RNA treated with TURBO-free DNase (Ambion, Austin, TX) and diluted 1:8 for QPCR. A microliter of the dilution (
12.5 ng of RNA-equivalent cDNA) was used in a 16-µl TaqMan QPCR with Applied Biosystems 7900 default cycling conditions. The reaction components were 1x TaqMan Buffer A (Applied Biosystems); 5.5 mM MgCl2; dATP, dCTP, dGTP, and dTTP at 400 µM each; each experimental primer at 300 nM; 200 nM TaqMan experimental probe (Applied Biosystems); each Gapdh primer at 100 nM, 200 nM rodent Gapdh probe; and 0.4 units of Taq Gold DNA Pol (Applied Biosystems). The real-time QPCR cycling conditions were 50°C for 2 min and 95°C for 10 min, followed by 40 cycles of 95°C for 15 sec and 60°C for 1 min. FAM (Mcs5a region gene locus probe) and VIC (Rodent Gapdh probe; Applied Biosystems) fluorescence values were measured by using Applied Biosystems SDS v 2.2 software; quantities of transcripts were measured by comparison of cycle threshold values with a standard curve calculated from serial dilutions. Sample measurements are an average of four replicates per sample and were standardized by dividing the quantity of rodent Gapdh. Data were analyzed by using the Mann–Whitney tests of StatView.
Breast Cancer Risk Association Study. Population-based cases of incident invasive breast cancer and community controls from Wisconsin were recruited according to a protocol approved by the University of Wisconsin Health Sciences Institutional Review Board (18). Cases 20–69 years of age were identified through the Wisconsin statewide tumor registry. Controls were randomly sampled from driver's license files (ages, 20–64 years) and Medicare beneficiary lists (ages, 65–69 years). Controls (n = 1,790) were frequency-age-matched in 5-year intervals to have an age distribution similar to the cases (n = 1,737). Only women of European descent were included to limit stratification. Human DNA extraction, genotyping, and quality control methods are listed in SI Text. The U.K. samples have been described (19).
The tag SNPs that characterize the common haplotypes in block 4.2 (rs2381718, rs10758440, rs999988, and rs2182317) (SI Fig. 8) were subjected to Cochran Armitage tests for trend and normal approximations of log odds ratios for heterozygotes and minor allele homozygotes using a population of 4,376 breast cancer cases and 4,547 controls from the U.K. samples. The tests were applied retroactively to the Wisconsin population and the combined stratified sample. Seven polymorphisms from five additional SNP bins located in MCS5A1 were genotyped in the Wisconsin samples after the resequencing of 24 Wisconsin samples. Primer and probe sequences are listed in SI Table 9. Of these polymorphisms, only SNP-A1 (rs6476643) was tested in the Wisconsin and U.K. populations.
| Acknowledgements |
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| Footnotes |
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Abbreviations: C.I., confidence interval; CNS, conserved sequence; DMBA, 7,12-dimethylbenzanthracene; Mb, megabase; QPCR, quantitative PCR; QTL, quantitative trait locus; WF, Wistar–Furth; WKy, Wistar–Kyoto.
To whom correspondence should be addressed at: McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin, 1400 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706. E-mail: gould{at}oncology.wisc.edu
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Author contributions: D.J.S. and S.E.H. contributed equally to this work; D.J.S., S.E.H., J.D.H., A.T.-D., and M.N.G. designed research; D.J.S., S.E.H., B.A.A., Y.Z., J.D.H., K.-S.C., C.B., K.-T.K., R.L., B.P., M.S., A.M.D., and D.F.E. performed research; A.T.-D., C.B., K.-T.K., R.L., B.P., M.S., A.M.D., D.F.E., and B.A.P. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; D.J.S., S.E.H., J.M.H., B.M., P.D.P., and M.N.G. analyzed data; and D.J.S., S.E.H., A.T.-D., and M.N.G. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data deposition: The sequence reported in this paper has been deposited in the GenBank database (accession no. DQ901406).
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0701687104/DC1.
© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
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