Trans-ethnic variation in germline variants of patients with renal cell carcinoma

• Main Authors: Sarah Abou Alaiwi, Amin H. Nassar, Elio Adib, Stefan M. Groha, Elie W. Akl, Bradley A. McGregor, Edward D. Esplin, Shan Yang, Kathryn Hatchell, Vincent Fusaro, Sarah Nielsen, David J. Kwiatkowski, Guru P. Sonpavde, Mark Pomerantz, Judy E. Garber, Matthew L. Freedman, Huma Q. Rana, Alexander Gusev, Toni K. Choueiri
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-03-01
• Series: Cell Reports
• Subjects: renal cell carcinoma; kidney cancer; germline variants; DNA damage repair; clinical genetics; Ancestry
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124721002400
• ISSN: 2211-1247

Summary: Prior studies of the renal cell carcinoma (RCC) germline landscape investigated predominantly patients of European ancestry. We examine the frequency of germline pathogenic and likely pathogenic (P/LP) variants in 1,829 patients with RCC from various ancestries. Overall, P/LP variants are found in 17% of patients, among whom 10.3% harbor one or more clinically actionable variants with potential preventive or therapeutic utility. Patients of African ancestry with RCC harbor significantly more P/LP variants in FH compared to patients of non-African ancestry with RCC and African controls from the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD). Patients of non-African ancestry have significantly more P/LP variants in CHEK2 compared to patients of African ancestry with RCC and non-Finnish Europeans controls. Non-Africans with RCC have more actionable variants compared to Africans with RCC. This work helps understand the underlying biological differences in RCC between Africans and non-Africans and paves the way to more comprehensive genomic characterization of underrepresented populations.