Prostate cancer (PrCa) is the most frequently diagnosed male cancer in developed countries. To identify common PrCa susceptibility alleles, we conducted a multi-stage genome-wide association study and previously reported the results of the first two stages, which identified 16 novel susceptibility loci for PrCa. Here we report the results of stage 3 in which we evaluated 1,536 SNPs in 4,574 cases and 4,164 controls. Ten novel association signals were followed up through genotyping in 51,311 samples in 30 studies through the international PRACTICAL consortium. In addition to previously reported loci, we identified a further seven new prostate cancer susceptibility loci on chromosomes 2p, 3q, 5p, 6p, 12q and Xq (P=4.0 ×10−8 to P=2.7 ×10−24). We also identified a SNP in TERT more strongly associated with PrCa than that previously reported. More than 40 PrCa susceptibility loci, explaining ~25% of the familial risk in this disease, have now been identified.

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Objective To assess the efficacy of metformin in megestrol acetate (MA)-based fertility-sparing treatment for patients with atypical endometrial hyperplasia (AEH) and endometrioid endometrial cancer (EEC).Design A randomised, single-centre, open-label, controlled trial conducted between October 2013 and December 2017.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified multiple common genetic variants associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer (PrCa), but these explain less than one-third of the heritability. To identify further susceptibility alleles, we conducted a meta-analysis of four GWAS including 5953 cases of aggressive PrCa and 11 463 controls (men without PrCa). We computed association tests for approximately 2.6 million SNPs and followed up the most significant SNPs by genotyping 49 121 samples in 29 studies through the international PRACTICAL and BPC3 consortia. We not only confirmed the association of a PrCa susceptibility locus, rs11672691 on chromosome 19, but also showed an association with aggressive PrCa [odds ratio = 1.12 (95% confidence interval 1.03-1.21), P = 1.4 × 10(-8)]. This report describes a genetic variant which is associated with aggressive PrCa, which is a type of PrCa associated with a poorer prognosis.

ErbB2 is a vital breast cancer gene and its overexpression has a decisive role in breast tumor initiation and malignant progression. However, the molecular mechanisms that underlie ErbB2 dysregulation in breast cancer cells remain incompletely understood. In this study, we found that ErbB2 expression is inversely correlated with the level of miR-155, a well-documented oncogenic miRNA, in ErbB2-positive breast tumors. We further determined that miR-155 potently suppresses ErbB2 in breast cancer cells. Mechanistically, miR-155 acts to downregulate ErbB2 via two distinct mechanisms. First, miR-155 represses ErbB2 transcription by targeting HDAC2, a transcriptional activator of ErbB2. Second, miR-155 directly targets ErbB2 via a regulatory element in its coding region. Intriguingly, miR-155 is upregulated by trastuzumab and in turn leads to a reduction of ErbB2 expression in trastuzumab-treated ErbB2-positive breast cancer cells. Functional studies showed that miR-155 inhibits ErbB2-induced malignant transformation of human breast epithelial cells. Thus, our findings reveal an intriguing miR-155-ErbB2 context in regulating the malignant transformation of breast epithelial cells, and thereby indicate a novel mode of action for miR-155 in ErbB2-positive breast cancer.