2q36.3 is associated with prognosis for oestrogen receptor-negative breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy

Large population-based registry studies have shown that breast cancer prognosis is inherited. Here we analyse single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of genes implicated in human immunology and inflammation as candidates for prognostic markers of breast cancer survival involving 1,804 oestrogen receptor (ER)-negative patients treated with chemotherapy (279 events) from 14 European studies in a prior large-scale genotyping experiment, which is part of the Collaborative Oncological Gene-environment Study (COGS) initiative. We carry out replication using Asian COGS samples (n=522, 53 events) and the Prospective Study of Outcomes in Sporadic versus Hereditary breast cancer (POSH) study (n=315, 108 events). Rs4458204-A near CCL20 (2q36.3) is found to be associated with breast cancer-specific death at a genome-wide significant level (n=2,641, 440 events, combined allelic hazard ratio (HR)=1.81 (1.49-2.19); P for trend=1.90 × 10 â ̂'9). Such survival-associated variants can represent ideal targets for tailored therapeutics, and may also enhance our current prognostic prediction capabilities

Supplement: "Localization and broadband follow-up of the gravitational-wave transient GW150914" (2016, ApJL, 826, L13)

This Supplement provides supporting material for Abbott et al. (2016a). We briefly summarize past electromagnetic (EM) follow-up efforts as well as the organization and policy of the current EM follow-up program. We compare the four probability sky maps produced for the gravitational-wave transient GW150914, and provide additional details of the EM follow-up observations that were performed in the different bands

A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant

On 17 August 2017, the Advanced LIGO 1 and Virgo 2 detectors observed the gravitational-wave event GW170817-a strong signal from the merger of a binary neutron-star system 3 . Less than two seconds after the merger, a γ-ray burst (GRB 170817A) was detected within a region of the sky consistent with the LIGO-Virgo-derived location of the gravitational-wave source 4-6 . This sky region was subsequently observed by optical astronomy facilities 7 , resulting in the identification 8-13 of an optical transient signal within about ten arcseconds of the galaxy NGC 4993. This detection of GW170817 in both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves represents the first 'multi-messenger' astronomical observation. Such observations enable GW170817 to be used as a 'standard siren' 14-18 (meaning that the absolute distance to the source can be determined directly from the gravitational-wave measurements) to measure the Hubble constant. This quantity represents the local expansion rate of the Universe, sets the overall scale of the Universe and is of fundamental importance to cosmology. Here we report a measurement of the Hubble constant that combines the distance to the source inferred purely from the gravitational-wave signal with the recession velocity inferred from measurements of the redshift using the electromagnetic data. In contrast to previous measurements, ours does not require the use of a cosmic 'distance ladder' 19 : the gravitational-wave analysis can be used to estimate the luminosity distance out to cosmological scales directly, without the use of intermediate astronomical distance measurements. We determine the Hubble constant to be about 70 kilometres per second per megaparsec. This value is consistent with existing measurements 20,21 , while being completely independent of them. Additional standard siren measurements from future gravitationalwave sources will enable the Hubble constant to be constrained to high precision

Assessment of variation in immunosuppressive pathway genes reveals TGFBR2 to be associated with prognosis of estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer after chemotherapy.

Tumor lymphocyte infiltration has been associated with clinical response to chemotherapy in estrogen receptor (ER) negative breast cancer. To identify variants in immunosuppressive pathway genes associated with prognosis after adjuvant chemotherapy for ER-negative patients, we studied invasive breast cancer patients of European ancestry with stage I-III disease, including 9,334 ER-positive patients (3,151 treated with chemotherapy) and 2,334 ER-negative patients (1,499 treated with chemotherapy).Funding for the iCOGS infrastructure came from: the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement number 223175 (HEALTH-F2-2009-223175) (COGS), Cancer Research UK (C1287/A10118, C1287/A10710, C12292/A11174, C1281/A12014, C5047/A8384, C5047/A15007, C5047/A10692), the National Institutes of Health (CA128978) and Post-Cancer GWAS initiative (1U19 CA148537, 1U19 CA148065 and 1U19 CA148112 - the GAME-ON initiative), the Department of Defence (W81XWH-10-1-0341), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the CIHR Team in Familial Risks of Breast Cancer, Komen Foundation for the Cure, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. The BCAC is funded by CR-UK (C1287/A10118 and C1287/A12014). Meetings of the BCAC have been funded by the European Union COST program (BM0606). The ABCS study was supported by the Dutch Cancer Society (grants NKI 2007-3839; 2009 4363); BBMRI-NL, which is a Research Infrastructure financed by the Dutch government (NWO 184.021.007); and the Dutch National Genomics Initiative. The work of the BBCC study was partly funded by ELAN-Fond of the University Hospital of Erlangen. The HEBCS study was financially supported by the Helsinki University Central Hospital Research Fund, Academy of Finland (266528), the Finnish Cancer Society, The Nordic Cancer Union and the Sigrid Juselius Foundation. Financial support for KARBAC study was provided through the regional agreement on medical training and clinical research (ALF) between Stockholm County Council and Karolinska Institute, the Swedish Cancer Society, The Gustav V Jubilee foundation and Bert von Kantzows foundation. The KBCP study was financially supported by the special Government Funding (EVO) of Kuopio University Hospital grants, Cancer Fund of North Savo, the Finnish Cancer Organizations, and by the strategic funding of the University of Eastern Finland. The LMBC study is supported by the Stichting tegen Kanker (232–2008 and 196–2010). The MARIE study was supported by the Deutsche Krebshilfe e.V. (70-2892-BR I, 106332, 108253, 108419), the Hamburg Cancer Society, the German Cancer Research Center and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Germany (01KH0402). The MCBCS study was supported by the NIH grants CA128978, CA116167, CA176785 and NIH Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Breast Cancer (CA116201), and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and a generous gift from the David F and Margaret T Grohne Family Foundation and the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation. The NBCS study was supported by grants from the Norwegian Research council, 155218/ V40, 175240/S10 to ALBD, FUGE-NFR 181600/V11 to VNK and a Swizz Bridge Award to ALBD. The OFBCR study was supported by grant UM1 CA164920 from the National Cancer Institute (USA). The PBCS study was funded by Intramural Research Funds of the National Cancer Institute, Department of Health and Human Services, USA. The RBCS study was funded by the Dutch Cancer Society (DDHK 2004–3124, DDHK 2009–4318). The SASBAC study was supported by funding from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research of Singapore (A*STAR), the US National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The SEARCH study is funded by a program grant from Cancer Research UK (C490/A10124)] and supported by the UK National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. The SKKDKFZS study is supported by the German Cancer Research Center. The kConFab study is supported by a grant from the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and previously by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Queensland Cancer Fund, the Cancer Councils of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, and the Cancer Foundation of Western Australia. The kConFab follow-up study has received funding from the NHMRC, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Cancer Australia, and the National Institute of Health (USA). KAP is a National Breast Cancer Foundation Fellow (Australia). The HERPACC study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, Culture and Technology of Japan, by a Grant-in-Aid for the Third Term Comprehensive 10-Year Strategy for Cancer Control from Ministry Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, by Health and Labour Sciences Research Grants for Research on Applying Health Technology from Ministry Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan and by National Cancer Center Research and Development Fund. The MYBRCA study is funded by research grants from the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (UM.C/HlR/MOHE/06) and Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation (CARIF). Additional controls were recruited by the Singapore Eye Research Institute, which was supported by a grant from the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC08/1/35/19/550), Singapore and the National medical Research Council, Singapore NMRC/CG/SERI/2010). The SEBCS study was supported by the BRL (Basic Research Laboratory) program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2012-0000347). The TWBCS study is supported by the Taiwan Biobank project of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. The POSH study was supported by Funding Breast Cancer Campaign (NOV210PR62) and Cancer Research UK (C1275/A9896). The content of this manuscript does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the National Cancer Institute or any of the collaborating centers Lei et al. Breast Cancer Research (2015) 17:18 Page 11 of 13 in the Breast Cancer Family Registry (BCFR), nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the USA Government or the BCFR. Douglas F Easton is a Principal Research Fellow of Cancer Research UK. The funders had no roles in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant

The detection of GW170817 (ref. 1) heralds the age of gravitational-wave multi-messenger astronomy, with the observations of gravitational-wave and electromagnetic emission from the same transient source. On 17 August 2017 the network of Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)2 and Virgo3 detectors observed GW170817, a strong signal from the merger of a binary neutron-star system. Less than two seconds after the merger, a γ-ray burst event, GRB 170817A, was detected consistent with the LIGO–Virgo sky localization region4–6). The sky region was subsequently observed by optical astronomy facilities7, resulting in the identification of an optical transient signal within about 10 arcseconds of the galaxy NGC 4993 (refs 8–13). GW170817 can be used as a standard siren14–18, combining the distance inferred purely from the gravitational-wave signal with the recession velocity arising from the electromagnetic data to determine the Hubble constant. This quantity, representing the local expansion rate of the Universe, sets the overall scale of the Universe and is of fundamental importance to cosmology. Our measurements do not require any form of cosmic ‘distance ladder’19; the gravitational-wave analysis directly estimates the luminosity distance out to cosmological scales. Here we report H0 = kilometres per second per megaparsec, which is consistent with existing measurements20,21, while being completely independent of them

Localization and Broadband Follow-up of the Gravitational-wave Transient GW150914

A gravitational-wave (GW) transient was identified in data recorded by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors on 2015 September 14. The event, initially designated G184098 and later given the name GW150914, is described in detail elsewhere. By prior arrangement, preliminary estimates of the time, significance, and sky location of the event were shared with 63 teams of observers covering radio, optical, near-infrared, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths with ground- and space-based facilities. In this Letter we describe the low-latency analysis of the GW data and present the sky localization of the first observed compact binary merger. We summarize the follow-up observations reported by 25 teams via private Gamma-ray Coordinates Network circulars, giving an overview of the participating facilities, the GW sky localization coverage, the timeline, and depth of the observations. As this event turned out to be a binary black hole merger, there is little expectation of a detectable electromagnetic (EM) signature. Nevertheless, this first broadband campaign to search for a counterpart of an Advanced LIGO source represents a milestone and highlights the broad capabilities of the transient astronomy community and the observing strategies that have been developed to pursue neutron star binary merger events. Detailed investigations of the EM data and results of the EM follow-up campaign are being disseminated in papers by the individual teams. </p

Common germline polymorphisms associated with breast cancer-specific survival

Abstract Introduction Previous studies have identified common germline variants nominally associated with breast cancer survival. These associations have not been widely replicated in further studies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of previously reported SNPs with breast cancer-specific survival using data from a pooled analysis of eight breast cancer survival genome-wide association studies (GWAS) from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. Methods A literature review was conducted of all previously published associations between common germline variants and three survival outcomes: breast cancer-specific survival, overall survival and disease-free survival. All associations that reached the nominal significance level of P value <0.05 were included. Single nucleotide polymorphisms that had been previously reported as nominally associated with at least one survival outcome were evaluated in the pooled analysis of over 37,000 breast cancer cases for association with breast cancer-specific survival. Previous associations were evaluated using a one-sided test based on the reported direction of effect. Results Fifty-six variants from 45 previous publications were evaluated in the meta-analysis. Fifty-four of these were evaluated in the full set of 37,954 breast cancer cases with 2,900 events and the two additional variants were evaluated in a reduced sample size of 30,000 samples in order to ensure independence from the previously published studies. Five variants reached nominal significance (P <0.05) in the pooled GWAS data compared to 2.8 expected under the null hypothesis. Seven additional variants were associated (P <0.05) with ER-positive disease. Conclusions Although no variants reached genome-wide significance (P <5 x 10−8), these results suggest that there is some evidence of association between candidate common germline variants and breast cancer prognosis. Larger studies from multinational collaborations are necessary to increase the power to detect associations, between common variants and prognosis, at more stringent significance levels

Localization and broadband follow-up of the gravitational-wave transient GW150914

A gravitational-wave transient was identified in data recorded by the Advanced LIGO detectors on 2015 September 14. The event candidate, initially designated G184098 and later given the name GW150914, is described in detail elsewhere. By prior arrangement, preliminary estimates of the time, significance, and sky location of the event were shared with 63 teams of observers covering radio, optical, near-infrared, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths with ground- and space-based facilities. In this Letter we describe the low-latency analysis of the gravitational wave data and present the sky localization of the first observed compact binary merger. We summarize the follow-up observations reported by 25 teams via private Gamma-ray Coordinates Network Circulars, giving an overview of the participating facilities, the gravitational wave sky localization coverage, the timeline and depth of the observations. As this event turned out to be a binary black hole merger, there is little expectation of a detectable electromagnetic signature. Nevertheless, this first broadband campaign to search for a counterpart of an Advanced LIGO source represents a milestone and highlights the broad capabilities of the transient astronomy community and the observing strategies that have been developed to pursue neutron star binary merger events. Detailed investigations of the electromagnetic data and results of the electromagnetic follow-up campaign will be disseminated in the papers of the individual teams