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Use of GWAS data to address the association between Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) and cancer

Principal Investigator
Name
Zhiwei Liu
Degrees
Ph.D.
Institution
National Cancer Institute
Position Title
Investigator
Email
About this CDAS Project
Study
PLCO (Learn more about this study)
Project ID
PLCO-375
Initial CDAS Request Approval
Jun 22, 2018
Title
Use of GWAS data to address the association between Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) and cancer
Summary
Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region resides on chromosome 6 and contains a large number of genes related to immune system function. It plays a central role in presentation of antigens to the immune system, and is characterized by high polymorphism at the gene and haplotype level and strong linkage disequilibrium patterns. HLA genes are classified by Class I, Class II, and non-Class I/II genes according to different immune function. Previous studies show that HLA genes are associated with cancer risk. Based on a previously approved project using Total Genome Set (TGS), we analyzed genotypes for all SNPs in a region 20KB wider than the MHC region (chr6: 28437797 to 33488354 in b37/hg19). PLCO project is one of the participating studies. We thus request information on phenotypes and covariates, including case-control status, histological types of cases, age (continuous), sex and race/ethnicity.
Aims

1) Which cancers have/do not have genetic associations within the MHC region
2) Do cancers associated with EBV infection have stronger evidence for genetic associations within the HLA Class I region, other infection-associated cancers and hematopoetic cancers have stronger evidence for associations within the HLA Class II regions, and other solid tumors with no know infectious cause either have no evidence of associations in the MHC region or have stronger evidence for associations within the non-HLA Class I/II regions of the MHC.

Collaborators

Ruth Pfeiffer, NCI/DCEG
Andriy Derkach, NCI/DCEG
Kelly Yu, NCI/DCEG
Zhiwei Liu, NCI/DCEG

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