Folate is an important micronutrient for a mother and baby’s health during pregnancy. CLIC studies show that the risk of childhood leukemia is reduced for children if their mothers took folate supplements during pregnancy.
Since previous genetic studies of folate intake had a limited population and only focused on a few genes, results in this area are mixed. Our CLIC researchers, led by Dr. Catherine Metayer, University of California, Berkeley, leveraged data from four of our member countries to perform the largest and most comprehensive investigation into the relationship between genetic variants in the folate metabolism pathway and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) risk among diverse populations.
The CLIC team used a pool of 9,058 childhood ALL cases and 92,364 controls from North America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania with major ancestry groups including ~73% European/White, ~13% Latinx/Hispanic, ~12% Asian. The investigators tested the relationship of 46 genes in the folate metabolism pathway with childhood ALL and found that none of the selected genes were significantly related to ALL after rigorous statistical tests. Given the large size of the study and diverse ancestries, the CLIC researchers concluded that the genes that impact the folate metabolism pathway do not substantially affect childhood ALL risk.
The members of CLIC are able to perform powerful, diverse studies that produce conclusive results in the field of childhood cancer research. We are proud to highlight this recent publication from CLIC and CLIC’s prominent researchers. Dr. Metayer was recently featured on Children with Cancer UK’s website for this project: Q&A with Prof. Catherine Metayer.
For more CLIC’s published research, please visit clic.ngo/research.
Authors: Metayer C, Spector LG, Scheurer ME, Jeon S, Scott RJ, Takagi M, Clavel J, Manabe A, Ma X, Hailu EM, Lupo PJ, Urayama KY, Bonaventure A, Kato M, Meirhaeghe A, Chiang CWK, Morimoto LM, Wiemels JL.
Published In: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2024 Jun 21. doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-24-0189. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38904462.