Variation in innate immunity genes and risk of multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a B-cell lymphoid malignancy suspected to be associated with immunologic factors. Given recent findings associating single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in innate immunity genes with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, we conducted an investigation of innate immune gene variants using specimens from a population-based case-control study of MM conducted in Connecticut women. Tag SNPs (N=1461) summarizing common variation in 149 gene regions were genotyped in non-Hispanic Caucasian subjects (103 cases, 475 controls). Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) relating SNP associations with MM were computed using unconditional logistic regression, while the MinP test was used to investigate associations with MM at the gene level. We calculated permutation-adjusted P-values and false discovery rates (FDR) to account for the number of comparisons performed in SNP-level and gene-level tests, respectively. Three genes were associated with MM when controlling for a FDR of ≤10%: SERPINE1 (P_MinP<0.0001; FDR=0.02), CCR7 (P_MinP=0.0006; FDR=0.06) and HGF (P_MinP=0.001; FDR=0.08). Two SNPs demonstrated robust associations: SERPINE1 rs2227667 (P=2.1×10^-5, P_permutation=0.03) and HGF rs17501108 (P=5.0×10^-5, P_permutation=0.07). Our findings suggest that genetic variants in SERPINE1 and HGF, and possibly CCR7, are associated with MM risk, and warrant further investigation in other studies.