Identifying shared polygenic risk across cancers.

Shared genetic susceptibility across 16 cancers is limited at the genome-wide level but reveals structured regional and polygenic convergence, with 82 shared regions identified.

• Why it matters: Understanding the genetic overlap among cancers can improve insights into common biological pathways and inform targeted prevention and treatment strategies.
• What they did: The study used SUPERGNOVA to estimate local genetic correlations across 16 cancers, identified shared regions and pathways, and evaluated cross-cancer polygenic risk score (PRS) associations, decomposing PRSs into functional components.
• The result: Findings show 20 significantly correlated cancer pairs at the genome-wide level, 82 shared regions across 66 pairs, and five cancer pairs with shared polygenic risk enriched in immune-related pathways, highlighting structured genetic overlap.