HRAS1 rare minisatellite alleles and breast cancer in Australian women under age forty years

Abstract

Background: A recent meta-analysis of 23 studies supported the empirically derived hypothesis that women who lack one of the four common minisatellite alleles at the HRAS1 locus are at increased risk of breast cancer. These studies relied on visual sizing of alleles on electrophoretic gels and may have underreported rare alleles. We determined whether this hypothesis applied to early-onset breast cancer by using a new method to size minisatellite alleles. Methods: We conducted a population-based, case- control-family study of 249 Australian women under 40 years old at diagnosis of a first primary breast cancer and 234 randomly selected women, frequency matched for age. We sized HRAS1 minisat..