title: A putative exonic splicing polymorphism in the BCL6 gene and the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
abstract: Recent studies have shown that the B-cell lymphoma 6 gene (BCL6) is an oncogene that contributes to lymphomagenesis. Exon 6 of BCL6 contains a common single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (-195 C>T; dbSNP ID: rs1056932) that alters a potential binding site for an exonic splicing enhancer. We used unconditional logistic regression models to examine the association between this SNP and the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in a population-based case-control study of women residing in Connecticut (461 case patients and 535 control subjects). The risk of NHL among women with the CC genotype was more than double that of women with the TT genotype (odds ratio [OR] = 2.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.5 to 3.3). Higher risks were observed for two NHL subtypes, namely B-cell chronic lymphatic leukemia/prolymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (OR = 3.5, 95% CI = 1.6 to 7.8) and T-cell lymphoma (OR = 5.2, 95% CI = 2.0 to 13.3). Our results support the hypothesis that a genetic variant that could alter mRNA transcripts of BCL6 may contribute to the etiology of NHL and suggest that this variant warrants further investigation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520-8034, USA. yawei.zhang@yale.edu
authors.forename: Yawei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.forename: Nathaniel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rothman
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Shelia Hoar
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Zahm
authors.forename: Sophia S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Theodore R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Holford
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Leaderer
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boyle
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Kaiyong
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chanock
authors.forename: Tongzhang
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zheng
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003237:Connecticut; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D005091:Exons; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000235:genetics*; D016017:Odds Ratio; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D051560:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-6; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: C084103:BCL6 protein, human; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D051560:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-6