Genome-wide association study of B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma identifies 3q27 as a susceptibility locus in the Chinese population

To identify genetic risk factors underlying non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) from the B cell lineage, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 253 Chinese individuals with B cell NHL (cases) and 1,438 controls and further validation in 1,175 cases and 5,492 controls. We identified a new susceptibility locus, rs6773854, located between BCL6 (encoding B cell lymphoma protein 6) and LPP (encoding lipoma preferred partner) on oncogene-rich chromosome 3q27 that was significantly associated with increased risk of B cell NHL (meta-analysis P = 3.36 × 10 -13, per-allele odds ratio (OR) = 1.44) and with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in particular (meta-analysis P = 1.14 × 10 -11, OR = 1.47). We found no evidence of association of rs6773854 with non-B cell NHLs (T cell and natural killer (NK) lineages) (P = 0.17, OR = 1.12) and observed significant heterogeneity between B cell and non-B cell subtypes (P het = 0.01, I 2 = 84%). Our results provide insight that germline variation in the intergenic region between BCL6 and LPP has a role in risk of B cell lymphomagenesis.