Human Molecular Genetics Advance Access published online on March 5, 2009
Human Molecular Genetics, doi:10.1093/hmg/ddp109
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Common variation at the Adiponectin locus is not associated with colorectal cancer risk in the United Kingdom
1 The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK 2 Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6HA, UK 3 Section of Cancer Genetics, Institute of Cancer, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5NG, UK
* Correspondence: Luis G Carvajal-Carmona, PhD, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, United Kingdom, Phone/Fax: +44 (0) 0186587831/720, Email: luis{at}well.ox.ac.uk
Received January 13, 2009; Revised February 20, 2009; Accepted March 3, 2009
A recent study examined common genetic variant at the adiponectin locus (ADIPOQ) in two case-control colorectal cancer (CRC) series from the United States and reported a positive association between a SNP in the 5’ region of the gene (rs266729) and decreased disease risk. In an attempt to replicate the previously reported associations, we examined data from two CRC genome-wide association studies based on the United Kingdom population. The first cohort comprised 931 familial colorectal tumour cases and 929 cancer-free controls. The second included 1,216 individuals with Dukes stage B or C CRCs from two clinical trials and 1,436 controls from the 1958 Birth Cohort. We tested associations between CRC risk and 82 SNPs in a region of 250kb around the ADIPOQ gene; nine of these SNPs were located in the coding and promoter regions. None of the markers tested was significantly associated with CRC risk after correction for multiple testing under any of the models in any of the two cohorts. A meta-analysis of the data also failed to detect any association. We therefore failed to replicate an association between common variants at ADIPOQ and CRC risk in the United Kingdom and suggest that the previous report is either population-specific or a false-positive result.