New Breast Cancer gene identified

A new breast cancer gene has been identified in a study led by Women's College Hospital (WCH) researcher Dr. Mohammad Akbari, who is also an assistant professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. The study, describes how mutations in a gene called RECQL are strongly linked to the onset of breast cancer in two populations of Polish and French-Canadian women. In this study, about 20,000 different genes were studied, among 195 breast cancer patients with strong family histories of breast cancer who did not have a mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2. The patients came from two populations, a Polish group and a French-Canadian group.
Recurrent RECQL mutations within both the Polish and French-Canadian populations were identified in this study. Within the Polish group, one type of RECQL mutation showed a five-fold increased risk for developing breast cancer compared to individuals without a mutation. Meanwhile, within the French-Canadian population, another type of RECQL mutation occurred 50 times more frequently among familial breast cancer patients, compared to population controls.