文章：

多民族队列研究：探索基因、生活方式和癌症风险

The multiethnic cohort study: exploring genes, lifestyle and cancer risk

原文发布日期：2004-07-01

DOI: 10.1038/nrc1389

类型: Review Article

开放获取: 否

要点：

1. Asian migrants to the United States have shown major changes in rates of several important cancers. An understanding of the reasons for these changing rates provides an important insight into cancer causation.
2. The Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) Study was established to use variations in specific rates of disease in different ethnic groups to characterize the environmental and genetic contributions to certain common cancers.
3. In the MEC, breast cancer rates are highest among native Hawaiians and Japanese. Differences in established breast cancer risk factors do not explain these high risks.
4. Prostate cancer rates are highest in African Americans. Because only age and family history are additional known risk factors for prostate cancer, systematic research is underway to identify cancer-associated variants in the androgen growth factor and in as yet unidentified gene families.
5. Variation in coding and regulatory regions of various genes contributes to susceptibility to many chronic diseases, such as cancer. Clarifying this variation using population-based protocols necessitates the careful characterization of each gene. For association studies, large and well-characterized populations of diseased and matched non-diseased individuals are crucial to minimize the limitations that have applied to many studies published so far.
6. Variation in disease-associated alleles by race and ethnic group is a key strength of the MEC and other such large population-based studies.

要点翻译：

1. 移居美国的亚洲人几种重要癌症的发病率已发生显著变化。理解这些发病率变化的原因能为癌症成因提供重要启示。
2. 多民族队列研究旨在利用不同族裔群体特定疾病发病率的差异，来揭示环境和遗传因素对某些常见癌症的影响机制。
3. 在该队列研究中，夏威夷原住民和日本裔的乳腺癌发病率最高。已知乳腺癌风险因素的差异无法解释这些高发病率。
4. 非裔美国人的前列腺癌发病率最高。由于年龄和家族史是前列腺癌仅有的已知风险因素，目前正在开展系统性研究，以识别雄激素生长因子及尚未确定的基因家族中与癌症相关的变异。
5. 多种基因编码区和调控区的变异会影响癌症等慢性疾病的易感性。采用基于人群的研究方案来阐明这种变异，必须对每个基因进行精细表征。对于关联研究而言，拥有大量经过精准表征的患病人群与匹配非患病个体至关重要，这能最大限度减少既往多数研究中存在的局限性。
6. 不同种族和族裔群体在疾病相关等位基因上的变异，正是多民族队列研究及其他类似大规模人群研究的关键优势所在。

英文摘要：

The search for the causes of cancer and means of cancer prevention has entered a new era as recent developments allow correlation of environmental and behavioural exposures, genetic variation and patient outcomes. The Multiethnic Cohort Study was designed to take advantage of these advances to prospectively explore the roles of lifestyle and genetic susceptibility in the occurrence of cancer. The ethnic diversity of the cohort in this study provides a wide range of dietary exposures and genetic variation, thereby providing a unique dimension to this research.

摘要翻译： 

癌症病因的探寻与癌症预防手段的研究已进入一个新时代，最新进展使环境暴露、行为因素、遗传变异与患者结局得以关联。多民族队列研究正是利用这些突破，前瞻性地探讨生活方式与遗传易感性在癌症发生中的作用。该队列涵盖多种族群体，饮食暴露与遗传变异范围广泛，为研究增添了独特维度。

原文链接：

The multiethnic cohort study: exploring genes, lifestyle and cancer risk