No association between a stop codon polymorphism in RAD52 and breast cancer risk.

Introduction The human RAD52 protein plays an important role in DNA homologous recombination and DNA double-strand break repair. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are involved in the DNA damage response pathway shared with RAD51 and RAD52 (1). Bell et al. (2) observed a germ-line Ser346ter truncation polymorphism (TCG to TAG), resulting in removal of 72 COOHterminal residues, in 3 of 99 cases ( 40 years old) with breast cancer and in 5 of 102 controls. We prospectively assessed the association between the RAD52 Ser346ter polymorphism and breast cancer risk in a case-control study nested within the Nurses’ Health Study cohort. In addition, the frequency of the germ-line RAD52 Ser346ter polymorphism was determined among 103 women diagnosed with primary invasive cancer in more than one organ after enrollment in the cohort study.