Genome-wide association study confirms lung cancer susceptibility loci on chromosomes 5p15 and 15q25 in an African-American population

In the combined analysis, we confirmed two loci to be associated with lung cancer that achieved the threshold of genome-wide significance: 15q25.1 marked by rs2036527 (p = 1.3 × 10−9; OR = 1.32; 95% CI = 1.20-1.44) near CHRNA5, and 5p15.33 marked by rs2853677 (p = 2.8 × 10−9; OR = 1.28; 95% CI = 1.18-1.39) near TERT. The association with rs2853677 is driven by the adenocarcinoma subtype of lung cancer (p = 1.3 × 10−8; OR = 1.37; 95% CI = 1.23-1.54). No SNPs reached genome-wide significance for either of the main effect models examining smoking − cigarettes per day and current or former smoker. Our study was powered to identify strong risk loci for lung cancer in African Americans; we confirmed results previously reported in African Americans and other populations for two loci near plausible candidate genes, CHRNA5 and TERT, on 15q25.1 and 5p15.33 respectively, are associated with lung cancer. Additional work is required to map and understand the biological underpinnings of the strong association of these loci with lung cancer risk in African Americans.