Variants associated with Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Genetic variants associated with classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma (cHL) are reported this week in Nature Genetics. cHL is a lymph node cancer, and is one of the most common cancers among young adults in developed countries.

Richard Houlston and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for cHL in 589 cases and 5,199 healthy controls from the UK, with replication of these results in an additional four cohorts. They identify three genomic regions newly associated with cHL, and based on this, suggest the involvement of the MYC, GATA3 and the NFkB pathways in the disease. The authors also replicate earlier associations to the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II region, which shows the most significant association to cHL susceptibility.