The APOBEC3B gene belongs to a cluster of DNA-editing enzymes on chromosome 22 and encodes an activation-induced cytidine deaminase. A large deletion of APOBEC3B was associated with increased breast cancer risk, but the evidence is inconclusive. To investigate whether or not APOBEC3B is a breast cancer susceptibility gene, we sequenced this gene in 617 Polish patients with hereditary breast cancer. We detected a single recurrent truncating mutation (c.783delG, p.Val262Phefs) in four of the 617 (0.65%) hereditary cases by sequencing. We then genotyped an additional 12,484 women with unselected breast cancer and 3740 cancer-free women for the c.783delG mutation. The APOBEC3B c.783delG allele was detected in 60 (0.48%) unselected cases and 19 (0.51%) controls (OR = 0.95, 95% CI 0.56-1.59, p = 0.94). The allele was present in 8 of 1968 (0.41%) familial breast cancer patients from unselected cases (OR = 0.80, 95% CI 0.35-1.83, p = 0.74). Clinical characteristics of breast tumors in carriers of the APOBEC3B mutation and non-carriers were similar. No cancer type was more frequent in the relatives of mutation carriers than in those of non-carriers. We conclude the APOBEC3B deleterious mutation p.Val262Phefs does not confer breast cancer risk. These data do not support the hypothesis that APOBEC3B is a breast cancer susceptibility gene.
Keywords: APOBEC3B gene; Polish population; breast cancer risk; mutation.