Exome Sequencing of Germline DNA from Non-BRCA1/2 Familial Breast Cancer Cases Selected on the Basis of aCGH Tumor Profiling

The bulk of familial breast cancer risk (similar to 70%) cannot be explained by mutations in the known predisposition genes, primarily BRCA1 and BRCA2. Underlying genetic heterogeneity in these cases is the probable explanation for the failure of all attempts to identify further high-risk alleles. While exome sequencing of non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer cases is a promising strategy to detect new high-risk genes, rational approaches to the rigorous pre-selection of cases are needed to reduce heterogeneity. We selected six families in which the tumours of multiple cases showed a specific genomic profile on array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH). Linkage analysis in these families revealed a region on chromosome 4 with a LOD score of 2.49 under homogeneity. We then analysed the germline DNA of two patients from each family using exome sequencing. Initially focusing on the linkage region, no potentially pathogenic variants could be identified in more than one family. Variants outside the linkage region were then analysed, and we detected multiple possibly pathogenic variants in genes that encode DNA integrity maintenance proteins. However, further analysis led to the rejection of all variants due to poor co-segregation or a relatively high allele frequency in a control population. We concluded that using CGH results to focus on a sub-set of families for sequencing analysis did not enable us to identify a common genetic change responsible for the aggregation of breast cancer in these families. Our data also support the emerging view that non-BRCA1/2 hereditary breast cancer families have a very heterogeneous genetic basis.