We found that two of the loci most strongly linked with colorectal cancer (CRC) risk, 8q24 (upstream of MYC) and 18q21 (in the intron of SMAD7), as well as 20q13 (in the intron of LAMA5), are tightly associated with the prognosis of rectal cancer patients.
BCAM and LAMA5 were identified as molecular targets within both tumor cells and TME of KRAS-mutant hepatic metastasis from colorectal cancer, where they were specifically overexpressed.
Notably, two independent meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies found the C-allele of LAMA5rs4925386-C/T correlated with the risk of colorectal cancer.
Half of the Caucasian-identified variants, including the recently fine-mapped BMP pathway loci, BMP4, GREM1, BMP2 and LAMA 5, did not show any evidence for association with CRC in SCH (OR ~1; p-value >0.1).