Associations between genetically predicted blood protein biomarkers and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma risk

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of most lethal malignancies with few known risk factors and biomarkers. Identification of disease biomarkers is critical for understanding the pathogenesis of this cancer and identifying high risk individuals for close surveillance. Several blood protein biomarkers have been linked to PDAC in previous studies, but these studies have assessed only a limited number of biomarkers usually in small samples. To identify novel circulating protein biomarkers of PDAC, we studied 8,280 cases and 6,728 controls of European descent from the Pancreatic Cancer Cohort Consortium and the Pancreatic Cancer Case-Control Consortium, by using genetic instruments.Protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs) for 1,226 plasma proteins identified in a large INTERVAL study of 3,301 healthy European descendants were used as instruments to evaluate associations between genetically …