Sharing data for more power
Data for the large international collaboration came from the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium (GECCO), the Colorectal Transdisciplinary study (CORECT) and the Colon Cancer Family Registry, or CCFR. Fred Hutch houses the GECCO coordinating center for the genetic data, under Peters’ leadership.
From these sources, the researchers pulled out nearly 6,200 cases of early-onset colorectal cancer and nearly 66,000 healthy “controls.” Then they conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis.
They then used that genome-wide association study, or GWAS, data to perform a Mendelian randomization, which allowed them to look at causal associations between 28 risk factors and early-onset colorectal cancer. Mendelian randomization uses genetic variants as proxies for risk factors to allow causal inference between an exposure and outcome.
By comparing the genetic variations of the healthy individuals with the genetic variations in those with colorectal cancer, they were able to precisely pinpoint which lifestyle factors were increasing the risk.
“It’s a trick we can use to find genetic risk factors linked to different traits and diseases,” Peters said. “There are hundreds of genetic variants that increase risk of obesity. If a person has a lot of these genetic risk factors, they tend to have a higher risk of obesity. If those individuals also have a higher risk of colorectal cancer, we can infer that obesity is linked to colorectal cancer.”
Peters said this type of analysis is a good way to investigate the impact of lifestyle factors.
“It’s important to see that alcohol and obesity are linked to early-onset colorectal cancer,” she said. “Also, insulin signaling and infection-related biological pathways. These are all really important to understand — it’s helping us to develop interventions.”
None of this could be done, of course, without a large team of international researchers willing to share data.
“This was the first comprehensive genome-wide association study for early-onset colorectal cancer,” Peters said. “We have been fortunate to closely collaborate with investigators across many studies from over 130 institutes across the globe who are willing to put their data together. No single study is powered to investigate this important question alone. We can find these associations because we have large numbers and because we measure it precisely.”
There are data gaps in the study, Peters acknowledged, primarily with regard to whether the findings apply to all ancestry groups.
“The vast majority of research is done in European-descent individuals, so we don’t know if there are specific genetic risk factors that are contributing to risk in other racial and ethnic groups that are either absent or at low frequency in European descent populations,” she said.
Similarly, there could also be unique lifestyle or environmental factors that contribute to high risk in other racial and ethnic groups. Alaska Native people, for instance, have some of the highest rates of colorectal cancer and the highest increase in early-onset colorectal cancer in the world.
“This cannot be explained by lack of access to screening as the tribal community is very concerned and is investing a lot in colorectal screening,” Peters said, adding that further study should elucidate the risk for all racial and ethnic groups. “There could be unique genetic, lifestyle or environmental factors that explain these high rates.”
Content Original Link: