In women with three consecutive night shifts, a reduced risk of breast cancer was associated with carriage of variant alleles of SNPs in CLOCK (rs3749474), BMAL1 (rs2278749), BMAL2 (rs2306074), CSNK1E (rs5757037), NPAS2 (rs17024926), ROR-b (rs3903529, rs3750420), MTNR1A (rs131113549) and PER3 (rs1012477). The gene discussed is NPAS2; the disease is breast carcinoma.