Germline genomic variants associated with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Abstract

Mary Relling and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and its subtypes, identifying a specific association between common variants in ARID5B and B-hyperdiploid ALL. Using the Affymetrix 500K Mapping array and publicly available genotypes, we identified 18 SNPs whose allele frequency differed significantly(P < 1 × 10−5) between pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cases (n = 317) and non-ALL controls (n = 17,958). Two SNPs in ARID5B not only differed between ALL and non-ALL groups (rs10821936, P = 1.4 × 10−15, odds ratio (OR) = 1.91; rs10994982, P = 5.7 × 10−9, OR = 1.62) but also distinguished B-hyperdiploid ALL from other subtypes (rs10821936, P = 1.62 × 10−5, OR = 2.17; rs10994982, P = 0.003, OR 1.72). These ARID5B SNPs also distinguished B-hyperdiploid ALL from other subtypes in an independent validation cohort (n = 124 children with ALL; P = 0.003 and P = 0.0008, OR 2.45 and 2.86, respectively) and were associated with methotrexate accumulation and gene expression pattern in leukemic lymphoblasts. We conclude that germline variants affect susceptibility to, and characteristics of, specific ALL subtypes.