In vivo exploration of the functional activity of the non-coding 8q24 prostate cancer risk locus.

Genome-wide associa t ion studies (GWAS) have successfully identified a substantial number of risk variants for prostate cancer [1–10]. In total, more than 20 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that predispose to prostate malignancy have been found scattered throughout the genome in coding and non-coding regions. The 8q24 chromosomal region is an intriguing locus as it harbors five independent susceptibility variants (rs10086908; rs16901979; rs620861; rs6983267; rs1447295) that span a 440-kb genomic interval devoid of genes or protein-coding transcripts. Thus, it is thought that the effects of the 8q24 variation on the predisposition to cancer may be mediated by cis-regulatory mechanisms that control the expression