Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Multiple Susceptibility Loci for Malignant Neoplasms of the Brain in Taiwan

Primary brain malignancy is a rare tumor with a global incidence of less than 10 per 100,000 people. Hence, there is limited power for identifying risk loci in individual studies, especially for Han Chinese. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in Taiwan, including 195 cases and 195 controls. We identified five new genes for malignant neoplasms of the brain: EDARADD (rs645507, 1p31.3, p = 7.71 × 10^-5, odds ratio (OR) = 1.893), RBFOX1 (rs8044700, p = 2.35 × 10^-5, OR = 2.36), LMF1 (rs3751667, p = 7.24 × 10^-7, OR = 2.17), DPP6 (rs67433368, p = 8.32 × 10^-5, OR = 3.94), and NDUFB9 (rs7827791, p = 9.73 × 10^-6, OR = 4.42). These data support that genetic susceptibility toward GBM or non-GBM tumors is highly distinct, likely reflecting different etiologies. Combined with signaling analysis, we found that RNA modification may be related to major risk factors in primary malignant neoplasms of the brain.