Lung Cancer Variants in Romanian Population – a Genome-Wide Association Study

Worldwide, lung cancer is the deadliest malignant tumour, being associated with a major risk factor: smoking. The exposure to environmental risk factors does not explain completely the development of lung malignant tumours, raising questions about the influence of the genetic background and the interaction between genes and environment. The study aims to identify variants which are associated with lung cancer in the Romanian population. After an association analysis performed in R Studio using PLINK tool for the genomic data obtained from 1386 cases and 1437 control subjects, 69 single nucleotide polymorphisms having a p value below 10
^-5
were identified, 4 of which had a p value below 10
^-8
. None of the variants identified has been previously reported as connected to lung cancer. After an investigation of the scientific literature regarding the genes where the statistically significant single nucleotide polymorphisms are located, multiple connections to lung cancer were identified.