Identification of 19 new risk loci and potential regulatory mechanisms influencing susceptibility to testicular germ cell tumor

Kevin Litchfield, Max Levy, Giulia Orlando, Chey Loveday, Philip J Law, Gabriele Migliorini, Amy Holroyd, Peter Broderick, Robert Karlsson, Trine B Haugen, Wenche Kristiansen, Jérémie Nsengimana, Kerry Fenwick, Ioannis Assiotis, ZSofia Kote-Jarai, Alison M Dunning, Kenneth Muir, Julian Peto, Rosalind Eeles, Douglas F Easton, Darshna Dudakia, Nick Orr, Nora Pashayan, D Timothy Bishop, Alison Reid, Robert A Huddart, Janet Shipley, Tom Grotmol, Fredrik Wiklund, Richard S Houlston, Clare Turnbull

Index: 10.1038/ng.3896

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Abstract

Clare Turnbull and colleagues report discovery of 19 new susceptibility loci for testicular germ cell tumor (TGCT) and provide evidence for a network of physical interactions between TGCT risk variants and candidate causal genes. Their findings implicate widespread disruption of developmental transcriptional regulators in TGCT susceptibility, consistent with failed primordial germ cell differentiation as an initiating step in oncogenesis.