Abstract
In 2020, 146,063 deaths due to pancreatic cancer are estimated to occur in Europe and the United States combined. To identify common susceptibility alleles, we performed the largest pancreatic cancer GWAS to date, including 9,040 patients and 12,496 controls of European ancestry from the Pancreatic Cancer Cohort Consortium (PanScan) and the Pancreatic Cancer Case-Control Consortium (PanC4).
Here, we find significant evidence of a novel association at rs78417682 (7p12/TNS3, P=4.35x10-8). Replication of ten promising signals in up to 2,737 patients and 4,752 controls from the PANcreatic Disease ReseArch (PANDoRA) consortium yields new genome-wide significant loci: rs13303010 at 1p36.33 (NOC2L, P=8.36x10-14), rs2941471 at 8q21.11 (HNF4G, P=6.60x10-10), rs4795218 at 17q12 (HNF1B, P=1.32x10-8), and rs1517037 at 18q21.32 (GRP, P=3.28x10-8). rs78417682 is not statistically significantly associated with pancreatic cancer in PANDoRA.
Expression quantitative trait locus analysis in three independent pancreatic datasets, provides molecular support of NOC2L as a pancreatic cancer susceptibility gene.