ZIA CP010119 10797 (ZIA) | |||
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Title | Genetic Studies of Pesticide Exposed Workers | ||
Institution | NCI, Bethesda, MD | ||
Principal Investigator | Koutros, Stella | NCI Program Director | N/A |
Cancer Activity | N/A | Division | DCEG |
Funded Amount | $20,212 | Project Dates | null - null |
Fiscal Year | 2018 | Project Type | Intramural |
Research Topics w/ Percent Relevance | Cancer Types w/ Percent Relevance | ||
Biochemical Epidemiology (45.0%) Cancer (100.0%) |
Breast (30.0%) Prostate (70.0%) |
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Research Type | |||
Exogenous Factors in the Origin and Cause of Cancer Interactions of Genes and/or Genetic Polymorphisms with Exogenous and/or Endogenous Factors |
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Abstract | |||
Cancers of the prostate and breast continue to be the leading cause of new cancer diagnoses in men and women in the U.S. In the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), prostate cancer has been shown to be consistently elevated compared to the general population (Koutros et al. 2010) and both breast and prostate cancer have been linked with specific pesticide exposures in the study. Results showed significant increases in the risk of aggressive prostate cancer associated with three specific organophosphate insecticides (Koutros et al. 2013). A link between organophosphate insecticide use and breast cancer has also been observed (Lerro et al. 2015) in the cohort. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified several independent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as risk factors for breast and prostate cancer. Since these discoveries, large epidemiologic studies have also attempted to uncover gene-environment interaction in the hopes of generating new hypotheses about the function of many of these genetic markers and to improve our understanding of potential mechanisms by which pesticides might influence risk of these common cancers. The AHS has contributed buccal cell DNA samples to two large multi-institutional collaborations which gives us genome-wide scan data on 580 cases of breast cancer and 1240 controls and 1162 cases of prostate cancer and 2206 controls. In addition to contributing data to the large consortia projects to identify novel genetic markers for breast and prostate cancer, this study will also allow for large-scale evaluation of gene-pesticide interactions and risk of breast and prostate cancer among applicators and spouses. Further genetic studies of tumors of pesticide exposed workers may also provide insights into the mechanisms for pesticide-related cancer associations observed in the AHS. |