Genome-wide linkage of 77 families from the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study (AAHPC)

BACKGROUND. The African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study was designed to recruit families with early-onset disease fulfilling criteria of >= 4 affected. METHODS. We present a similar to 10 cM genome-wide linkage (GWL) analysis on 77 families including 254 affected and 274 unaffected genotyped. RESULTS. Linkage analysis revealed three chromosomal regions with GENEHUNTER multipoint HLOD scores >= 1.3 for all 77 families at 11q22,17p11, and Xq21. One family yielded genome-wide significant evidence of linkage (LOD = 3.5) to the 17p11 region with seven other families >= 23 in this region. Twenty-nine families with no-male-to-male (MM) transmission gave a peak HLOD of 1.62 (alpha = 0.33) at the Xq21 locus. Two novel peaks >= 0.91 for the 16 families with '> 6 affected' occurred at 2p21 and 22q12. CONCLUSIONS. These chromosomal regions in the genome warrant further follow-up based on the hypothesis of multiple susceptibility genes with modest effects, or several major genes segregating in small subsets of families.