Abstract

The skin’s tendency to sunburn rather than tan is a major risk factor for skin cancer. Here we report a large genome-wide association study of ease of skin tanning in 176,678 subjects of European ancestry. We identify significant association with tanning ability at 20 loci. We confirm previously identified associations at six of these loci, and report 14 novel loci, of which ten have never been associated with pigmentation-related phenotypes. Our results also suggest that variants at the AHR/AGR3 locus, previously associated with cutaneous malignant melanoma the underlying mechanism of which is poorly understood, might act on disease risk through modulation of tanning ability.

Details

Title
Genome-wide association study in 176,678 Europeans reveals genetic loci for tanning response to sun exposure
Author
Visconti, Alessia 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Duffy, David L 2 ; Liu, Fan 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Zhu, Gu 2 ; Wu, Wenting 4 ; Chen, Yan 5 ; Hysi, Pirro G 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Zeng, Changqing 6 ; Sanna, Marianna 1 ; Iles, Mark M 7 ; Kanetsky, Peter A 8 ; Demenais, Florence 9 ; Hamer, Merel A 10 ; Uitterlinden, Andre G 11 ; Ikram, M Arfan 12   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Nijsten, Tamar 10 ; Martin, Nicholas G 2 ; Kayser, Manfred 13   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Spector, Tim D 1 ; Han, Jiali 14 ; Bataille, Veronique 15 ; Falchi, Mario 1 

 Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London, London, UK 
 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia 
 CAS Key Laboratory of Genomic and Precision Medicine, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Genetic Identification, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
 Department of Epidemiology, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Melvin & Bren Simon Cancer Center, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA 
 CAS Key Laboratory of Genomic and Precision Medicine, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China 
 CAS Key Laboratory of Genomic and Precision Medicine, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China 
 Section of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Leeds Institute of Cancer and Pathology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK 
 Department of Cancer Epidemiology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, FL, USA 
 INSERM, UMR 946, Genetic Variation and Human Diseases Unit, Paris, France; Institut Universitaire d’Hématologie, Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France 
10  Department of Dermatology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
11  Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
12  Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
13  Department of Genetic Identification, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
14  Department of Epidemiology, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Melvin & Bren Simon Cancer Center, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA; Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 
15  Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London, London, UK; Department of Dermatology, West Herts NHS Trust, Herts, UK 
Pages
1-7
Publication year
2018
Publication date
May 2018
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2036171600
Copyright
© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.