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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Identifying the Effects of BRCA1 Mutations on Homologous Recombination using Cells that Express Endogenous Wild-type BRCA1
Published on: February 17, 2011
Breast cancer susceptibility variants alter risks in familial disease
Ayse Latif1, Kristen D Hadfield, Stephen A Roberts
1Department of Medical Genetics, St Mary's Hospital, Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre (MAHSC), University of Manchester, Manchester M13 0JH, UK.
Background:
Recent candidate and genome-wide association studies have identified variants altering susceptibility to breast cancer.
Objective:
To establish the relevance of these variants to breast cancer risk in familial breast cancer cases both with and without BRCA1 or BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) mutations.
Methods:
A cohort of unrelated individuals with breast cancer due to the presence of either BRCA1 (121) or BRCA2 mutations (109) and individuals with familial breast cancer not due to BRCA1/2 mutations (722) were genotyped using Taqman SNP Genotyping Assays. Allele frequencies were compared with an ethnically and gender-matched group (436).
Results:
A synonymous variant (Ser51) in TOX3 (previously TNRC9) was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer (OR=1.82, p<0.001) in BRCA2 mutation carriers. The associations for FGFR2 (OR=1.20, p=0.046), TOX3 (OR=1.5, p<0.001), MAP3K1 (OR=1.26 p=0.03), CASP8 (OR=0.73 p=0.02) and the chromosome 8-associated SNP (OR=1.31, p=0.004) were replicated in individuals without BRCA1/2 mutations. In addition, homozygote carriers of MAP3K1 variants were shown to have a significantly lower Manchester Score (mean 13.8-17.6, p=0.003), whereas individuals carrying one or two copies of the FGFR2 variant had a higher Manchester Score (mean 17.5-17.9, p=0.01).
Conclusions:
This study confirms that susceptibility variants in FGFR2, TOX3 and MAP3K1 and on chromosome 8q are all associated with increased risk of cancer in individuals with a family history of breast cancer, whereas CASP8 is protective in this context. The level of risk is dependent on the strength of the family history and the presence of a BRCA1/2 mutation and contributes to the understanding of the use of these variants in clinical risk prediction.
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