Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications
Publication Date
4-14-2025
Journal
Clinical Cancer Research
DOI
10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-24-2785
PMID
39992227
PMCID
PMC11995001
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
2-24-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes
Keywords
Humans, Ribonuclease III, Wilms Tumor, Pinealoma, Male, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Germ-Line Mutation, Child, Child, Preschool, Adult, Pineal Gland, Adolescent, Kidney Neoplasms, MicroRNAs, Infant, DEAD-box RNA Helicases, Middle Aged
Abstract
Purpose: DROSHA, DGCR8, and DICER1 regulate miRNA biogenesis and are commonly mutated in cancer. Although DGCR8 and DICER1 germline pathogenic variants (GPV) cause autosomal dominant tumor predisposition, no association between DROSHA GPVs and clinical phenotypes has been reported.
Experimental design: After obtaining informed consent, sequencing was performed on germline and tumor samples from all patients. The occurrence of germline DROSHA GPVs was investigated in large pediatric and adult cancer datasets. The population prevalence of DROSHA GPVs was investigated in the UK Biobank and Geisinger DiscovEHR cohorts.
Results: We describe nine children from eight families with heterozygous DROSHA GPVs and a diagnosis of pineoblastoma (n = 8) or Wilms tumor (n = 1). A somatic second hit in DROSHA was detected in all eight tumors analyzed. All pineoblastoma tumors analyzed were classified as miRNA processing-altered 1 subtype. We estimate the population prevalence of germline DROSHA loss-of-function variants to be 1:3,875 to 1:4,843 but find no evidence for increased adult cancer risk.
Conclusions: This is the first report of DROSHA-related tumor predisposition. As pineoblastoma and Wilms tumor are also associated with DICER1 GPVs, our results suggest that the tissues of origin for these tumors are uniquely tolerant of general miRNA loss. The miRNA processing-altered 1 pineoblastoma subtype is associated with older age of diagnosis and better outcomes than other subtypes, suggesting DROSHA GPV status may have important clinical and prognostic significance. We suggest that genetic testing for DROSHA GPVs be considered for patients with pineoblastoma, Wilms tumor, or other DICER1-/DGCR8-related conditions and propose surveillance recommendations through research studies for individuals with DROSHA GPVs.
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