Background Telomere genetics has recently been emerged as an important field in molecular oncology. Various genome-wide association studies in different population groups have revealed that polymorphisms in Telomere maintenance gene ( TERT ) gene located on 5p15.33 is associated with susceptibility to leukemia and lung cancer risk. However, association of TERT with leukemia and lung cancer risk in north Indian population groups is still unknown. This study observed the association between genetic variant rs2853677 of TERT and leukemia and lung cancer in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Methods A total of 781 subjects, out of which 381 cases (203 leukemic patients and 178 non-small cell lung cancer patients NSCLC) and 400 healthy controls were recruited for the study. Genetic variant rs2853677of TERT was detected using the real-time and Taqman Chemistry. Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium was assessed using the chi square test. The allele and genotype- specific risks were estimated as odds ratio with 95% confidence interval. Results We observed that variant rs2853677 was strongly associated with lung cancer and leukemia risk with an odds ratio (OR) =1.8 (1.03–3.2 at 95% CI); p value (adjusted) = 0.03; odds ratio (OR) =2.9 (1.4–5.5.at 95% CI); p value (adjusted) = 0.002, respectively. Conclusion The results of this study suggested that rs2853677 of TERT signifies association in multiple cancers and suggests that it can become potential marker for diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer and leukemia. The study will provide an insight in understanding the genetic etiology and highlights the role of telomere-associated pathways in non-small cell lung cancer and leukemia. However, it would be quite interesting to explore the contribution of this variant in other cancers as well. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12885-019-5685-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Objective To investigate the association of newly identified genetic variants G>A (rs2285947) of the DNAH11 gene and G>A (rs2494938) of the LRFN2 gene with ovarian and breast cancers in women belonging to Jammu and Kashmir state, where the prevalence of ovarian and breast cancers is remarkably high in the population. Methods A candidate gene prospective case‐control association study design was adopted, in which 354 cases (219 cases of ovarian cancer and 135 cases of breast cancer) were histopathologically confirmed and 330 healthy controls matched for age and ethnicity were recruited. The details of cases and controls were also recorded in a predesigned pro forma after their written informed consent. Both variants were genotyped by TaqMan allele discrimination assay using real‐time polymerase chain reaction. Logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the corrected odds ratio (OR), confidence interval (CI), and level of significance (P value) for potential confounding factors. Results The rs2285947 variant of DNAH11 was found to be significantly associated with both ovarian and breast cancers with adjusted ORs of 1.7 (95% CI 1.2–2.4; P=0.004) and 1.70 (95% CI 1.13–2.54; P=0.0009), respectively. However, no significant association of variant rs2494938 of LRFN2 was observed with ovarian cancer (estimated OR 0.9, 95% CI 0.6–1.4; P=0.919) or breast cancer (estimated OR 1.27, 95% CI 0.8–1.9; P=0.216). Conclusions The collected data proposed that the variant rs2285947 of DNAH11 gene is a potential risk factor for ovarian and breast cancers in the studied population.

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