Evaluation of Fanconi anaemia genes FANCA, FANCC and FANCL in cervical cancer susceptibility

ObjectiveDisrupting the function of any of the 13 Fanconi anaemia (FA) genes causes a DNA repair deficiency disorder, with patients being susceptible to a number of cancer types. Variation in the family of FA genes has been suggested to affect risk of cervical cancer. The current study evaluates the influence of three genes in the FA pathway on cervical cancer risk in Swedish women.MethodsTagSNPs in FANCA, FANCC and FANCL were selected using the Tagger algorithm in Haploview. A total of 81 tagSNPs were genotyped in 782 cases (CIN3 or ICC) and 775 controls using the Illumina GoldenGate Assay and statistically analyzed for association with cervical cancer.Results72 SNPs were successfully genotyped in > 98% of the samples. Nominal associations were detected for FANCA rs11649196 (p = 0.05) and rs4128763 in FANCC (p = 0.02). The associations did not withstand correction for multiple testing.ConclusionsThe current study does not support that genetic variation in FANCA, FANCC or FANCL genes affects susceptibility to cervical cancer in the Swedish population.

Research highlights
► Fanconi anaemia gene variants have been suggested to influence cervical cancer risk.
► The association of tagSNPs in FANCA, FANCC or FANCL was analyzed in Swedish patients.
► FANCA, FANCC or FANCL were not associated with susceptibility to cervical cancer.