Haplotype patterns in cancer-related genes with long-range linkage disequilibrium: no evidence of association with breast cancer or positive selection.

The average length of linkage disequilibrium (LD) blocks in European populations is about 22 kb. In this study, we have selected 20 genes with LD blocks larger than 60 kb (with a median length of 88 kb) from a total of 121 cancer-related genes. We observed limited haplotype diversity, with an average of three haplotypes per gene accounting for more than 90% of the diversity, two of these being a Yin-Yang pair in 95% of the LD blocks. The mean frequency of the most common haplotype in the Spanish population was just below 50%, similar to those for the HapMap CEU and African samples, but lower than the 60% observed in Asian samples. Genes involved in the regulation of nucleobases and nucleic acid metabolism were overrepresented among these 20 genes with long LD blocks (eight genes ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, ERCC6, MLH1, MSH3, RAD54B and XRCC4) relative to the other 101 cancer-related genes studied (P=1.23 x 10(-6)). The ancestral haplotype was observed at a frequency greater than 3 in 67% of the genes either in the Spanish or one of the HapMap sampled populations. When observed, the ancestral haplotype had an average 15% frequency in the Spanish sample, less than half that observed in Asian and African samples. The Spanish Yin-Yang haplotype pair represented over 35% of haplotypes in African samples and over 65% in non-African samples. We detected differences in SNP frequencies between populations for five genes (ALDH2, APC, PIK3CB, RB1 and XRCC4, all with Fst>0.4); however, these genes did not show evidence of positive selection. Finally, we found no evidence that the haplotypes formed by SNPs in the 20 genes are associated with breast cancer.