Single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in regulatory DNA are linked to inherited cancer risk. Massively parallel reporter assays (MPRA) of 5,031 SNVs linked to 14 neoplasms comprising >90% of human malignancies were performed in pertinent diploid cell types then integrated with matching chromatin accessibility, looping, and eQTL data to identify 411 regulatory SNVs and their putative target eGenes. The latter highlighted specific protein networks in lifetime cancer risk, including mitochondrial translation, proliferation, signaling, adhesion, and immunity. This cancer SNV compendium underscores the importance of studying pathogenic variants in disease-relevant cells and implicates specific dysregulated gene networks in cancer predisposition. It also indicates that inherited cancer risk can impact the same gene via orthogonal genetic mechanisms of dysregulated expression as well as protein coding sequence alteration and demonstrates that a subset of germline-encoded risk genes also enable tumor growth of established cancers.
Overall design
Massively parallel reporter assay of cancer associated risk variants in 14 cell types