Genetic Characterization of Hereditary Cancer Syndromes Based on Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing

A hereditary cancer syndrome is a genetic predisposition to cancer caused by a germline mutation in cancer-related genes. Identifying the disease-causing variant is important for both the patient and relatives at risk in cancer families because this could be a guide in treatment and secondary cancer prevention. In this study, hereditary cancer panel harboring cancer-related genes was performed on MiSeq Illumina NGS system from peripheral blood samples. Sequencing files were fed into a cloud-based data analysis pipeline. Reportable variants were classified according to the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics guidelines. Three hundred five individuals were included in the study. Different pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants were detected in 75 individuals. The majority of these variants were in the <i>MUTYH</i>, <i>BRCA2</i>, and <i>CHEK2</i> genes. Nine novel pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants were identified in <i>BRCA1</i>, <i>BRCA2</i>, <i>GALNT12</i>, <i>ATM</i>, <i>MLH1</i>, <i>MSH2</i>, <i>APC</i>, and <i>KIT</i> genes. We obtained interesting and novel variants which could be related to hereditary cancer, and this study confirmed that NGS is an indispensable method for the risk assessment in cancer families.