The sensitivity of testing BRCA1 and BRCA2 remains unresolved as the frequency of deep intronic splicing variants has not been defined in high-risk familial breast/ovarian cancer families. This variant category is reported at significant frequency in other tumour predisposition genes, including NF1 and MSH2. We carried out comprehensive whole gene RNA analysis on 45 high-risk breast/ovary and male breast cancer families with no identified pathogenic variant on exonic sequencing and copy number analysis of BRCA1/2. In addition, we undertook variant screening of a 10-gene high/moderate risk breast/ovarian cancer panel by nextgeneration sequencing. DNA testing identified the causative variant in 50/56 (89%) breast/ovarian/male breast cancer families with Manchester scores of ≥ 50 with two variants being confirmed to affect splicing on RNA analysis. RNA sequencing of BRCA1/BRCA2 on 45 individuals from high-risk families identified no deep intronic variants and did not suggest loss of RNA expression as a cause of lost sensitivity. Panel testing in 42 samples identified a known RAD51D variant, a high-risk ATM variant in another breast ovary family and a truncating CHEK2 mutation. Current exonic sequencing and copy number analysis variant detection methods of BRCA1/2 have high sensitivity in high-risk breast/ovarian cancer families. Sequence analysis of RNA does not identify any variants undetected by current analysis of BRCA1/2. However, RNA analysis clarified the pathogenicity of variants of unknown significance detected by current methods. The low diagnostic uplift achieved through sequence analysis of the other known breast/ovarian cancer susceptibility genes indicates that further high-risk genes remain to be identified.
INTRODUCTIONFunctional variants in BRCA1 and BRCA2 account for 2-3% of all cases of breast cancer and 10-15% of epithelial ovarian cancer. 1,2 While the relationship between the two genes and cancer predisposition has been known for over 20 years and variant screening is offered routinely by a number of diagnostic laboratories worldwide, the sensitivity of variant detection is unresolved. This is mainly due to the heterogeneity of breast cancer with BRCA1/2 contributing only about 15-20% of the hereditary component. 3 Loss of function variants in two genes, RAD51C 4 and RAD51D, 5 confer a high risk of ovarian cancer; however, their contribution to breast cancer risk is less clear. 5,6 Until the discovery of functional variants in these two genes, it was assumed that the majority, if not all, of the inherited link between breast and ovarian cancer was due to variants in BRCA1 or BRCA2. 7 Ninety-five percent of families with the Breast Cancer Linkage Consortium (BCLC) criteria of at least four individuals with breast/ ovarian cancer, with the breast cancers diagnosed o60 years of age and at least one case of ovarian cancer in the family, were predicted to have a variant in either BRCA1 or BRCA2. This increased to 100% for families with two or more women with ovarian cancer. Similarly, 95% of male b...