Identification of 22 Novel Loci Associated with Susceptibility to Testicular Germ Cell Tumors

Testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT) are the most common cancers in young men of European ancestry aged 20 to 39 years. The Testicular Cancer Consortium (TECAC) has brought together the largest genome-wise association study (GWAS) study of TGCT to date. We conducted a GWAS of 5,602 cases and 5,006 controls aggregated from 12 locations in the US and Europe. Logistic regression models adjusted for study center and genomic ancestry. Genotypes were imputed against the Human Haplotype Reference Consortium. Meta-analysis was performed to combine GWAS results with summary statistics from five previously published TGCT studies, UK Biobank, deCODE Genetics, and an independent set of cases and controls, for a total of 10,156 cases and 179,683 controls. 22 novel and 45 previously reported loci associated with TGCT surpassed genome-wide significance (p < 5e-08).]]>
Penn dbGAP Summary Data for UploadvarsThe international TEsticular CAncer Consortium (TECAC) combined five published genome-wide association studies of testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT; 3,558 cases and 13,970 controls) to identify novel susceptibility loci. We conducted a fixed effects meta-analysis, including the first analysis of the X chromosome. Eight new loci mapping to 2q14.2, 3q26.2, 4q35.2, 7q36.3, 10q26.13, 15q21.3, 15q22.31, and Xq28 achieved genome-wide significance (P < 5x10-8). Most loci harbor biologically plausible candidate genes. We refined previously reported associations at 9p24.3 and 19p12 by identifying one and three additional independent SNPs, respectively. In aggregate, the 39 independent markers identified to date explain 37% of father-to-son risk, 8% of which can be attributed to the 12 new signals reported here. Our findings substantially increase the number of known TGCT susceptibility alleles, move the field closer to a comprehensive understanding of the underlying genetic architecture of TGCT, and provide further clues into the etiology of TGCT.Illumina Infinium HumcanCore-24 chip; imputed on HHRC; TGCT cases and normal controls; 10,608 subjects.