Skip to navigation Skip to main content Skip to footer

Approved Research

Impact of germline mutations on the development of liver tumors

Principal Investigator: Dr Eric Trepo
Approved Research ID: 71183
Approval date: July 22nd 2021

Lay summary

Liver tumors represent a significant cause of mortality worldwide. Although several environmental factors have been identified, many affected individuals never develop these tumors suggesting a genetic susceptibility. The analysis of genetic variants (i.e. difference in DNA sequence among individuals) pre-existing in normal cells and predisposing to tumor occurrence is currently a neglected field, particularly in the case of liver disease. This project aims to identify rare and common genetic variants predisposing to liver tumors. To this aim, a comparison of the genome of large cohorts of individuals with and without liver tumors will be performed. To ensure that these results are valid, a similar analysis will be conducted in a different group of patients with the same characteristics and different individuals from the general population. This project will particularly take advantage of the genetic data generated by the UK biobank in order to provide reliable analyses at the level of the general population. This project is expected to be completed within 30 months and will advance our understanding of liver tumor development and contribute to identify patients at high risk of developing such tumors.

Scope extension:

This project which aims to identify cancer predisposing genes to liver tumors in large cohorts of patients compared to controls with liver disease and from the general populaiton. It will also provide a comprehensive study of the interactions between germline and somatic alterations in liver tumors.

In addition this project aims to identify if genetically predicted fatty liver diseases (encompassing all the genes strongly associated with fatty liver disease) are causally associated with multiple liver (e.g. liver tumor) and non-liver-related outcomes, including cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney diseases. It will reliably inspect the potential causal effect between fatty liver disease and multiple liver and non-liver-related outcomes.