Although several lung cancer susceptibility loci have been identified, much of the heritability for lung cancer remains unexplained. Here 14,803 cases and 12,262 controls of European descent were genotyped on the OncoArray and combined with existing data for an aggregated genome-wide association study (GWAS) analysis of lung cancer in 29,266 cases and 56,450 controls. We identified 18 susceptibility loci achieving genome-wide significance, including 10 new loci. The new loci highlight the striking heterogeneity in genetic susceptibility across the histological subtypes of lung cancer, with four loci associated with lung cancer overall and six loci associated with lung adenocarcinoma. Gene expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis in 1,425 normal lung tissue samples highlights RNASET2, SECISBP2L and NRG1 as candidate genes. Other loci include genes such as a cholinergic nicotinic receptor, CHRNA2, and the telomere-related genes OFBC1 and RTEL1. Further exploration of the target genes will continue to provide new insights into the etiology of lung cancer.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 36 loci associated with body mass index (BMI), predominantly in populations of European ancestry. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine the association of >3.2 million SNPs with BMI in 39,144 men and women of African ancestry and followed up the most significant associations in an additional 32,268 individuals of African ancestry. We identified one new locus at 5q33 (GALNT10, rs7708584, P = 3.4 × 10(-11)) and another at 7p15 when we included data from the GIANT consortium (MIR148A-NFE2L3, rs10261878, P = 1.2 × 10(-10)). We also found suggestive evidence of an association at a third locus at 6q16 in the African-ancestry sample (KLHL32, rs974417, P = 6.9 × 10(-8)). Thirty-two of the 36 previously established BMI variants showed directionally consistent effect estimates in our GWAS (binomial P = 9.7 × 10(-7)), five of which reached genome-wide significance. These findings provide strong support for shared BMI loci across populations, as well as for the utility of studying ancestrally diverse populations.

We conducted imputation to the 1000 Genomes Project of four genome-wide association studies of lung cancer in populations of European ancestry (11,348 cases and 15,861 controls) and genotyped an additional 10,246 cases and 38,295 controls for follow-up. We identified large-effect genome-wide associations for squamous lung cancer with the rare variants BRCA2 p.Lys3326X (rs11571833, odds ratio (OR) = 2.47, P = 4.74 × 10(-20)) and CHEK2 p.Ile157Thr (rs17879961, OR = 0.38, P = 1.27 × 10(-13)). We also showed an association between common variation at 3q28 (TP63, rs13314271, OR = 1.13, P = 7.22 × 10(-10)) and lung adenocarcinoma that had been previously reported only in Asians. These findings provide further evidence for inherited genetic susceptibility to lung cancer and its biological basis. Additionally, our analysis demonstrates that imputation can identify rare disease-causing variants with substantive effects on cancer risk from preexisting genome-wide association study data.