A new gene mutation that can raise a woman’s risk for ovarian cancer is passed down from her father, scientists say.
A team of researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, identified a new kind of mutation, inherited through the X-chromosome, and is independent of other genes that women can already get tested for, the BBC reports.
However, experts say that more studies are needed to confirm how this gene works and what it is.
Women with a strong family history of cancer can get tested for the BRCA gene, which exponentially raises a woman’s chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Angelina Jolie, for example, famously inherited BRCA1 from her mother, and underwent preventative surgery after doctors told her she had an 87% risk of getting breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer.
Researchers still believe that there are many cases of what appear to be sudden ovarian cancer that are actually inherited, and some of these may be through the chromosome a female gets from her father. Men pass on only one X chromosome to daughters.
Kevin Eng and colleagues focused on the gene MAGEC3, found in the X chromosome inherited from fathers. Ovarian cancers linked to genes from the father had an earlier onset than genes liked to the maternal side.
Eng said, “What we have to do next is make sure we have the right gene by sequencing more families. This finding has sparked a lot of discussion within our group about how to find these X-linked families.” He added,
It’s an all-or-none kind of pattern: A family with three daughters who all have ovarian cancer is more likely to be driven by inherited X mutations than by BRCA mutations.
Catherine Pickworth from Cancer Research UK said, “This research suggests that some women’s risk of ovarian cancer could be passed down through their father’s family, as well as their mother’s, due to newly discovered faulty genes. In future, this could help women with a family history of ovarian cancer better understand their risk of developing the disease. This is important because ovarian cancer is often diagnosed at a late stage when it’s harder to treat. Further work is now needed to get a clearer picture of how the genetic faults uncovered in this research might affect inherited risk of ovarian cancer.”
The study was published in PLoS Genetics.
