Tuberculosis infection and lung adenocarcinoma: Mendelian randomization and pathway analysis of genome-wide association study data from never-smoking Asian women

Genomics. 2020 Mar;112(2):1223-1232. doi: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2019.07.008. Epub 2019 Jul 12.

Abstract

We investigated whether genetic susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB) influences lung adenocarcinoma development among never-smokers using TB genome-wide association study (GWAS) results within the Female Lung Cancer Consortium in Asia. Pathway analysis with the adaptive rank truncated product method was used to assess the association between a TB-related gene-set and lung adenocarcinoma using GWAS data from 5512 lung adenocarcinoma cases and 6277 controls. The gene-set consisted of 31 genes containing known/suggestive associations with genetic variants from previous TB-GWAS. Subsequently, we followed-up with Mendelian Randomization to evaluate the association between TB and lung adenocarcinoma using three genome-wide significant variants from previous TB-GWAS in East Asians. The TB-related gene-set was associated with lung adenocarcinoma (p = 0.016). Additionally, the Mendelian Randomization showed an association between TB and lung adenocarcinoma (OR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.03, 1.66, p = 0.027). Our findings support TB as a causal risk factor for lung cancer development among never-smoking Asian women.

Keywords: Lung adenocarcinoma; Lung cancer; Mendelian randomization; Pathway analysis; Tuberculosis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adenocarcinoma of Lung / epidemiology
  • Adenocarcinoma of Lung / genetics*
  • Asian People
  • Female
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Humans
  • Lung Neoplasms / epidemiology
  • Lung Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Mendelian Randomization Analysis
  • Non-Smokers / statistics & numerical data
  • Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / epidemiology
  • Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / genetics*