Zheng W, Long J, Gao YT et al.
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA.
Nat Genet 2009;41:324–8.
Editor’s note: Genetic factors play an important role in the development of familial and sporadic breast cancer. The discovery of the breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, has increased our understanding of the genetics of breast cancer; however, these two genes only account for a small fraction of breast cancers. Although researchers have been looking long and hard for other genes involved in breast cancer, none showing an association similar to that of BRCA1 and BRCA2 has been found. It may be that the majority of breast cancers are associated with a number of modifying genes that each carry a small risk but when added together result in a more substantial increase in risk. Looking for single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the whole of the genome is one way of identifying small increases in the risk of developing breast cancer. Several genome-wide association studies have identified new risks alleles for breast cancer, for example those recently found on chromosome 3 and 17 (
Nat Genet 2009;41:585–90). However, most of these studies were conducted in women of European descent. In the current article, genome-wide association analysis was conducted in 1505 case and 1522 control women from Shanghai, China.