These SNPs are located in a gene-sparse region with multiple long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) within 200 kb of distance, and are over 714 kb upstream of the T-box 3 gene involved with developmental processes, TBX3. The SNPs are within a potential cancer-specific enhancer observed to be in open chromatin for multiple cancer cell lines such as MCF-7, A549 and LNCaP, but not in normal NHLF, HMEC and PrEC cell lines (Additional file 9). Here, TBX3 is linked to cancer.