Human genes differ by their UV sensitivity estimated through analysis of UV-induced silent mutations in melanoma

We hypothesized that human genes differ by their sensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) exposure. We used somatic mutations detected by genome-wide screens in melanoma and reported in the Catalog Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer. As a measure of UV sensitivity, we used the number of silent mutations generated by C>T transitions in pyrimidine dimers of a given transcript divided by the number of potential sites for this type of mutations in the transcript. We found that human genes varied by UV sensitivity by two orders of magnitude. We noted that the melanoma-associated tumor suppressor gene CDKN2A was among the top five most UV-sensitive genes in the human genome. Melanoma driver genes have a higher UV-sensitivity compared with other genes in the human genome. The difference was more prominent for tumor suppressors compared with oncogene. The results of this study suggest that differential sensitivity of human transcripts to UV light may explain melanoma specificity of some driver genes. Practical significance of the study relates to the fact that differences in UV sensitivity among human genes need to be taken into consideration whereas predicting melanoma-associated genes by the number of somatic mutations detected in a given gene

Genome-wide association study of lung adenocarcinoma in East Asia and comparison with a European population

Lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer. Known risk variants explain only a small fraction of lung adenocarcinoma heritability. Here, we conducted a two-stage genome-wide association study of lung adenocarcinoma of East Asian ancestry (21,658 cases and 150,676 controls; 54.5% never-smokers) and identified 12 novel susceptibility variants, bringing the total number to 28 at 25 independent loci. Transcriptome-wide association analyses together with colocalization studies using a Taiwanese lung expression quantitative trait loci dataset (n = 115) identified novel candidate genes, including FADS1 at 11q12 and ELF5 at 11p13. In a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of East Asian and European studies, four loci were identified at 2p11, 4q32, 16q23, and 18q12. At the same time, most of our findings in East Asian populations showed no evidence of association in European populations. In our studies drawn from East Asian populations, a polygenic risk score based on the 25 loci had a stronger association in never-smokers vs. individuals with a history of smoking (Pinteraction = 0.0058). These findings provide new insights into the etiology of lung adenocarcinoma in individuals from East Asian populations, which could be important in developing translational applications

Estimation of bond risks using minimax

The alarmist sentiment pertaining to extremely rare events in the financial markets – ‘the black swan events’ – place a particular focus on the issue of risk assessment, since most of the methods of classical statistics tend to underestimate their influence. The present paper aims to apply the new instruments of mathematical data analysis to obtain information on the quality of the regression model for indicators associated with corporate security investment. The authors suggest mathematical tools that can be applied to analyze heterogeneous noise phenomena using the following indicators – the absolute and the relative approximation errors arising from the deviations obtained through the Minimax model, and the indicators of bond price elasticity based on the problem of best uniform approximation of functions by polynomials of specified degree. According to computational experiments, the suggested methodology can be applied in practice, and mathematical apparatus should be developed to explore this dynamic process in detail, mainly for the bonds and other securities threatened by risks that cannot be efficiently assessed by employing conventional valuation techniques. © 2016, by ASERS® Publishing. All rights reserved

Estimation of bond risks using minimax

The alarmist sentiment pertaining to extremely rare events in the financial markets – ‘the black swan events’ – place a particular focus on the issue of risk assessment, since most of the methods of classical statistics tend to underestimate their influence. The present paper aims to apply the new instruments of mathematical data analysis to obtain information on the quality of the regression model for indicators associated with corporate security investment. The authors suggest mathematical tools that can be applied to analyze heterogeneous noise phenomena using the following indicators – the absolute and the relative approximation errors arising from the deviations obtained through the Minimax model, and the indicators of bond price elasticity based on the problem of best uniform approximation of functions by polynomials of specified degree. According to computational experiments, the suggested methodology can be applied in practice, and mathematical apparatus should be developed to explore this dynamic process in detail, mainly for the bonds and other securities threatened by risks that cannot be efficiently assessed by employing conventional valuation techniques. © 2016, by ASERS® Publishing. All rights reserved

Confirmation of TNIP1 As a Susceptibility Locus for Systemic Sclerosis in a Large Multicentre Study

Pathophysiology and treatment of rheumatic disease

Association analysis of driver-gene related genetic variants identified novel lung cancer susceptibility loci with 20,871 lung cancer cases and 15,971 controls.

Background: A substantial proportion of cancer driver genes (CDG) are also cancer predisposition genes. However, the associations between genetic variants in lung CDGs and the susceptibility to lung cancer have rarely been investigated.Methods: We selected expression-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms (eSNP) and nonsynonymous variants of lung CDGs, and tested their associations with lung cancer risk in two large-scale genome-wide association studies (20,871 cases and 15,971 controls of European descent). Conditional and joint association analysis was performed to identify independent risk variants. The associations of independent risk variants with somatic alterations in lung CDGs or recurrently altered pathways were investigated using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project.Results: We identified seven independent SNPs in five lung CDGs that were consistently associated with lung cancer risk in discovery (P < 0.001) and validation (P < 0.05) stages. Among these loci, rs78062588 in TPM3 (1q21.3) was a new lung cancer susceptibility locus (OR = 0.86, P = 1.65 x 10(-6)). Subgroup analysis by histologic types further identified nine lung CDGs. Analysis of somatic alterations found that in lung adenocarcinomas, rs78062588[C] allele (TPM3 in 1q21.3) was associated with elevated somatic copy number of TPM3 (OR = 1.16, P = 0.02). In lung adenocarcinomas, rs1611182 (HLA-A in 6p22.1) was associated with truncation mutations of the transcriptional misregulation in cancer pathway (OR = 0.66, P = 1.76 x 10(-3)).Conclusions: Genetic variants can regulate functions of lung CDGs and influence lung cancer susceptibility.Impact: Our findings might help unravel biological mechanisms underlying lung cancer susceptibility

Confirmation of TNIP1 but not RHOB and PSORS1C1 as systemic sclerosis risk factors in a large independent replication study

<p>Introduction: A recent genome-wide association study in European systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients identified three loci (PSORS1C1, TNIP1 and RHOB) as novel genetic risk factors for the disease. The aim of this study was to replicate the previously mentioned findings in a large multicentre independent SSc cohort of Caucasian ancestry.</p> <p>Methods: 4389 SSc patients and 7611 healthy controls from different European countries and the USA were included in the study. Six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP): rs342070, rs13021401 (RHOB), rs2233287, rs4958881, rs3792783 (TNIP1) and rs3130573 (PSORS1C1) were analysed. Overall significance was calculated by pooled analysis of all the cohorts. Haplotype analyses and conditional logistic regression analyses were carried out to explore further the genetic structure of the tested loci.</p> <p>Results: Pooled analyses of all the analysed SNPs in TNIP1 revealed significant association with the whole disease (rs2233287 pMH=1.94×10−4, OR 1.19; rs4958881 pMH=3.26×10−5, OR 1.19; rs3792783 pMH=2.16×10−4, OR 1.19). These associations were maintained in all the subgroups considered. PSORS1C1 comparison showed association with the complete set of patients and all the subsets except for the anti-centromere-positive patients. However, the association was dependent on different HLA class II alleles. The variants in the RHOB gene were not associated with SSc or any of its subsets.</p> <p>Conclusions: These data confirmed the influence of TNIP1 on an increased susceptibility to SSc and reinforced this locus as a common autoimmunity risk factor.</p&gt

Lung cancer risk in never-smokers of European descent is associated with genetic variation in the 5(p)15.33 TERT-CLPTM1Ll region.

Introduction: Inherited susceptibility to lung cancer risk in never-smokers is poorly understood. The major reason for this gap in knowledge is that this disease is relatively uncommon (except in Asians), making it difficult to assemble an adequate study sample. In this study we conducted a genome-wide association study on the largest, to date, set of European-descent never-smokers with lung cancer.Methods: We conducted a two-phase (discovery and replication) genome-wide association study in never-smokers of European descent. We further augmented the sample by performing a meta-analysis with never-smokers from the recent OncoArray study, which resulted in a total of 3636 cases and 6295 controls. We also compare our findings with those in smokers with lung cancer.Results: We detected three genome-wide statistically significant single nucleotide polymorphisms rs31490 (odds ratio [OR]: 0.769, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.722-0.820; p value 5.31 x 10(-16)), rs380286 (OR: 0.770, 95% CI: 0.723-0.820; p value 4.32 x 10(-16)), and rs4975616 OR: 0.778, 95% CI: 0.730-0.829; p value 1.04 x 10(-14)). All three mapped to Chromosome 5 CLPTM1L-TERT region, previously shown to be associated with lung cancer risk in smokers and in never-smoker Asian women, and risk of other cancers including breast, ovarian, colorectal, and prostate.Conclusions: We found that genetic susceptibility to lung cancer in never-smokers is associated to genetic variants with pan-cancer risk effects. The comparison with smokers shows that top variants previously shown to be associated with lung cancer risk only confer risk in the presence of tobacco exposure, underscoring the importance of gene-environment interactions in the etiology of this disease