Brit J Cancer: Association of leukocyte telomere length with risk of germ cell tumors

Telomeres are DNA-protein structures consisting of repeating sequences (TTAGGG) located at the ends of chromosomes and have the function of stabilizing and protecting chromosomes from recombination and degeneration
.
Telomere length shortens over time as part of normal cell division, and when a critical length is reached, cells undergo senescence or apoptosis

Genetic prediction of leukocyte telomere length (LTL) has been evaluated in several studies of childhood
and adult cancers .
In a study published today in the British Journal of Cancer, an authoritative journal in the field of oncology, researchers aimed to assess whether genetically predicted longer LTLs are associated with germ cell tumors (GCTs) in children and adults

GCT children's samples were obtained from the Children's Oncology Group Study and the National Biobank Program in California and Michigan (N = 1413 cases, 1220 biological parents and 1022 controls)
.
Repeat analyses included 396 adult testicular GCT (TGCT) patients and 1589 matched controls from the UK Biobank

The researchers found a significant association between GWAS -reported TERT variants in adult TGCT patients and children with GCT: TERT/rs2736100-C (OR=0.
82; P=0.
0003), TERT/rs2853677-G (OR=0.
80; P=0.
0003) 0.
001) and TERT/rs7705526-A (OR = 0.
81; P = 0.
003)
.
The researchers also extended these results to women and tumors outside the testis

CONCLUSIONS : Although TERT is a known GCT susceptibility locus, the results of this study suggest that LTL predicted by other variants is not strongly associated with GCT risk in children or adults
.

Original source:

Shannon S.