Germline cytoskeletal and extra-cellular matrix-related single nucleotide variations associated with distinct cancer survival rates

Background: Human mutagenesis has a large stochastic component. Thus, large coding regions, especially cytoskeletal and extra-cellular matrix protein (CECMP) coding regions are particularly vulnerable to mutations. Recent results have verified a high level of somatic mutations in the CECMP coding regions in the cancer genome atlas (TCGA), and a relatively common occurrence of germline, deleterious mutations in the TCGA breast cancer dataset.

Methods: The objective of this study was to determine the correlations of CECMP coding region, germline nucleotide variations with both overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). TCGA, tumor and blood variant calling files (VCFs) were intersected to identify germline SNVs. SNVs were then annotated to determine potential consequences for amino acid (AA) residue biochemistry.

Results: Germline SNVs were matched against somatic tumor SNVs (i.e., tumor mutations) over twenty TCGA datasets to identify 23 germline-somatic matched, deleterious AA substitutions in coding regions for FLG, TTN, MUC4, and MUC17.

Conclusions: The germline-somatic matched SNVs, in particular for MUC4, extensively implicated in cancer development, represented highly, statistically significant effects on OS and DFS survival rates. The above results contribute to the establishment of what is potentially a new class of inherited cancer-facilitating genes, namely dominant negative tumor suppressor proteins.