Breast and Prostate Cancer and Hormone-Related Gene Variant Study
By Breast
and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium (BPC3)
The Breast and Prostate Cancer
and Hormone-Related Gene Variant Study pools data and biospecimens from 10
large prospective cohorts to conduct research on gene-environment interactions
in cancer etiology. The first project of the Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort
Consortium (BPC3) was funded
by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for four years in 2003 to assess
candidate genes in the steroid receptor metabolism and IGF pathways associated
with risk for breast and prostate cancer. (Abstract
I)
In the fall of 2007, BPC3 received an additional four years of funding to
test for certain single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that have been identified
in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) as being associated with estrogen
receptor negative breast and aggressive forms of prostate cancer, characterized
by a high histologic grade (Gleason score 8+). (Abstract
II)
The BPC3’s research
project is the first to be initiated by the Cohort
Consortium (CoCo), a group
of investigators responsible for high-quality cohorts that was formed by
NCI in 2000 for large-scale collaborations in the molecular epidemiology
of cancer.
The BPC3 collaborates with three genomic facilities, epidemiologists,
population geneticists, and biostatisticians from multiple institutions to
study hormone-related gene variants and environmental factors in breast and
prostate cancers. Four of the participating cohorts are funded through the
NCI’s Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program (EGRP), Division of
Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS). Two of the cohorts are funded
by NCI’s intramural research program, the Division of Cancer Epidemiology
and Genetics (DCEG).
The BPC3 has created an organizational structure to
accelerate research, reported in meeting abstracts
and journals. Among its
findings, the BPC3 reported that ER-negative breast cancer is related to
variants in the steroid metabolism gene HSD17B1 (Feigelson
et al., 2006).
As genotyping data are developed, BPC3 provides resources
for investigators,
for example, sequencing data to select tag SNPs for 59 genes in sex steroid
hormone and growth factor, and information on primers and probes.
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