ULK4 – Prostate Cancer Risk

A two-stage familial prostate cancer study identified ULK4 among 10 novel risk genes in men with a strong family history or aggressive disease. In stage one, whole-exome sequencing of 491 cases and 429 controls highlighted ULK4 as a candidate (PMID:32800727). Stage two custom capture in 2 917 independent cases and 1 899 controls confirmed its association with overall prostate cancer susceptibility without variant-level replication or segregation data (PMID:32800727). No ULK4 coding variants have yet been described in these cohorts, and no functional studies in prostate tissue have been reported.

Overall, the gene–disease association is classified as Limited based on a single multi-stage association study in 3 408 cases and 2 328 controls. Additional replication, family segregation, and mechanistic experiments are needed to establish clinical validity and utility.

Key Take-home: ULK4 is a candidate familial prostate cancer risk gene lacking variant‐level and functional validation for diagnostic use.

References

• European urology • 2021 • Two-stage Study of Familial Prostate Cancer by Whole-exome Sequencing and Custom Capture Identifies 10 Novel Genes Associated with the Risk of Prostate Cancer PMID:32800727

Evidence Based Scoring (AI generated)