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A six-nucleotide insertion-deletion polymorphism in the CASP8 promoter is associated with susceptibility to multiple cancers

Nature Genetics volume 39, pages 605–613 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Caspases are important in the life and death of immune cells and therefore influence immune surveillance of malignancies. We tested whether genetic variants in CASP8, CASP10 and CFLAR, three genes important for death receptor–induced cell killing residing in tandem order on chromosome 2q33, are associated with cancer susceptibility. Using a haplotype-tagging SNP approach, we identified a six-nucleotide deletion (−652 6N del) variant in the CASP8 promoter associated with decreased risk of lung cancer. The deletion destroys a stimulatory protein 1 binding site and decreases CASP8 transcription. Biochemical analyses showed that T lymphocytes with the deletion variant had lower caspase-8 activity and activation-induced cell death upon stimulation with cancer cell antigens. Case-control analyses of 4,995 individuals with cancer and 4,972 controls in a Chinese population showed that this genetic variant is associated with reduced susceptibility to multiple cancers, including lung, esophageal, gastric, colorectal, cervical and breast cancers, acting in an allele dose–dependent manner. These results support the hypothesis that genetic variants influencing immune status modify cancer susceptibility.

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Figure 1: Fine mapping of the CFLAR/CASP10/CASP8 gene cluster and SNPs associated with lung cancer in the promoter of CASP8.
Figure 2: Association between CASP8 −652 6N ins/del polymorphism and the expression of caspase-8.
Figure 3: Abolishment of an Sp1 binding site in the CASP8 promoter by the six-nucleotide deletion and reduction of promoter activity.
Figure 4: Differential levels of caspase-8 activity and rates of T lymphocyte apoptosis in PBMCs from healthy individuals carrying different CASP8 −652 genotypes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation grant 30530710 and State Key Basic Research Program grant 2004CB518701 (D.L.) and by grant 2002AA232031 from the Mega-Projects of Science Research for the 10th Five-Year Plan and the Hundred Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (C.Z.).

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Author notes

  1. Tong Sun and Yang Gao: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Etiology and Carcinogenesis, Cancer Institute and Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China

    Tong Sun, Wen Tan, Yongli Guo, Ming Yang, Xuemei Zhang & Dongxin Lin

  2. Beijing Genomics Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yang Gao, Sufang Ma, Qingrun Zhang & Changqing Zeng

  3. Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute and Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China

    Yuankai Shi & Jiarui Yao

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  1. Tong Sun
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Contributions

T.S. performed most of the experiments and the data analyses and wrote the manuscript; Y. Gao, S.M. and Q.Z. contributed to SNP discovery and Sequenom genotyping; Z.C. supervised SNP discovery and Sequenom genotyping; W.T., Y. Guo, M.Y. and X.Z. managed DNA samples and clinical information; Y.S. and J.Y. performed flow cytometry analyses and D.L. performed the data analyses, prepared the manuscript and supervised this study.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Changqing Zeng or Dongxin Lin.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Fig. 1

LD block of the CFLAR-CASP8-CASP10 region. (PDF 65 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

Characteristics of individuals with lung cancer and control subjects. (PDF 34 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Association between tag SNPs and lung cancer risk. (PDF 25 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

Activation of T lymphocytes in PBMCs. (PDF 15 kb)

Supplementary Table 4

Distribution of characteristics of affected individuals and controls. (PDF 19 kb)

Supplementary Table 5

Primer sequences. (PDF 65 kb)

Supplementary Methods (PDF 256 kb)

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Sun, T., Gao, Y., Tan, W. et al. A six-nucleotide insertion-deletion polymorphism in the CASP8 promoter is associated with susceptibility to multiple cancers. Nat Genet 39, 605–613 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng2030

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