The RAD51 family of genes encode a strand-transfer protein which is thought to be involved in recombinational repair of DNA damage and in meiotic recombination; variants in two of these genes have been highlighted in this study. A variant near RAD51C was genome-wide significant for tooth eruption; this gene has been implicated in a Fanconi anaemia-like disorder (41) as well as in rare monogenic forms of breast and ovarian cancer (42), but not in tooth development. Further, a variant in RAD51L1 reported in Lango Allen et al. (12) as being associated with height also showed suggestive evidence of association with primary tooth eruption in this study.
