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Malignant Lymphomas |
1 Depts. of Pathology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
2 Institute of Pathology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
3 Metabolism Branch
4 Biometric Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
5 Dept. of Pathology, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
6 Dept. of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA
7 Hematology, Hospital Clínic, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
8 British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
9 Norwegian Radium Hospital, Norway Hospital Clinic, Oslo, Norway
10 Dept. of Pathology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
11 Dept. of Pathology, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, OR, USA
12 Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
13 Institute of Clinical Pathology, Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus, Stuttgart, Germany
Correspondence: Andreas Rosenwald, Institute of Pathology, University of Würzburg, Josef-Schneider-Str. 2 97080 Würzburg, Germany Email:Rosenwald{at}mail.uni-wuerzburg.de
| ABSTRACT |
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Design and Methods: We studied tumors from 51 Burkitts lymphoma patients, comprising 26 with classic Burkitts lymphoma, 17 with atypical Burkitts lymphoma and 8 with discrepant Burkitts lymphoma, by comparative genomic hybridization and gene expression profiling.
Results: Classic and atypical Burkitts lymphoma (excluding discrepant Burkitts lymphoma), in adult and pediatric cases do not differ in underlying genomic imbalances or gene expression suggesting that these subgroups are molecularly homogeneous. Discrepant Burkitts lymphoma, however, differ dramatically in the absolute number of alterations from classic/atypical Burkitts lymphoma and from diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Moreover, this category includes lymphomas that carry both the t(14;18) and t(8;14) translocations and are clinically characterized by presentation in adult patients and an aggressive course.
Conclusions: Pediatric and adult Burkitts lymphoma are molecularly homogeneous, whereas discrepant Burkitts lymphoma differ in underlying genetic and clinical features from typical/atypical Burkitts lymphoma. Discrepant Burkitts lymphoma may therefore form a distinct genetic subgroup of aggressive B-cell lymphomas, which show poor response to multi-agent chemotherapy.
Key words: Burkitts lymphoma, comparative genomic hybridization, DLBCL, gene expression.
| Introduction |
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In recent years, global genetic analyses including conventional karyotyping, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and array-based CGH have described secondary genomic alterations in BL.6–13 One of the larger studies using CGH described gains of 12q, 22q, Xq and losses of 13q as the most frequent alterations in BL.11 Moreover, abnormalities in 1q and 7q were associated with inferior outcome.11 A recent combined cytogenetic study including CGH and spectral karyotyping (SKY) identified frequent gains of chromosome 7 and losses of 17p in a panel of ten BL cell lines.12 Using classical cytogenetic analysis in 39 Burkitt-like lymphomas, however, gains of chromosome 12 and losses of chromosomes 13 and 15 appeared to be the most frequent secondary genetic alterations in addition to the MYC translocation.13
This study was designed to investigate secondary genomic alterations in gene expression-defined BL4 using conventional CGH. In particular, we addressed the questions of whether: (i) morphological subgroups of molecularly defined BL (classic BL, atypical BL, discrepant BL) differ in underlying genetic alterations, (ii) pediatric and adult BL show differences in their genetic and gene expression profiles, and (iii) genetic alterations in BL lead to consequences in locus-specific or global gene expression profiles.
| Design and Methods |
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Statistical analysis
CGH alterations in individual cytobands were treated as categorical variables and their associations with various BL and DLBCL subgroups or gene-expression signatures were analyzed as detailed below. Preliminary analyses did not reveal significant differences in the effect of gains and amplifications; thus, these were treated as equivalent chromosomal abnormalities. Since a large number of individual chromosomal abnormalities (290 bands) were analyzed, there was a possibility that some of the observed differences would turn out to be significant purely by chance. To avoid such false positives, we used a stepwise permutation test,16 which corrected for multiple hypothesis testing, while accounting for the very strong correlation between the consecutive bands. All p-values presented have been so adjusted. Differences in the frequency of observed genomic imbalances between the subgroups were detected using a
2 test. Comparisons of the overall numbers of alterations, gains, losses and amplifications between the different subgroups of BL, and differences between adult and pediatric BL cases were analyzed using a t test.
To determine the relationship between chromosomal imbalances and the expression levels (as a continuous variable) of the genes located in the corresponding altered chromosomal regions (gain/amplification versus normal copy number and loss versus normal copy number) the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was performed. To further reduce the effects of multiple comparisons, we analyzed only those chromosomal abnormalities that were detected with a frequency of greater than 20% (39 bands) in one or more of the BL subgroups.
The correlation between chromosomal alterations and the previously described gene expression signatures in BL4 was established as follows. The signatures "MYC and target genes", "NF-
B target genes", "MHC class I genes" and the germinal center B-cell gene signatures "BL-high", "BL-low" and "BL=GCB4" were each averaged. For each band which included four or more losses, a t-test was computed between those BL samples with losses, and those BL samples with a wild type copy number. These results were then adjusted for multiple comparisons using the stepwise permutation test. An identical analysis was performed for BL cases showing gains/amplifications versus those harboring a wild type copy number.
| Results |
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Comparison of genomic imbalances between Burkitts lymphoma and DLBCL
A comparison of genomic imbalances between BL and 161 previously studied DLBCL14 showed that losses of 11q24-q25 were present in BL but uncommon in DLBCL (p=0.03) whereas there was a trend towards more gains/amplifications of 18q21-q23 in DLBCL compared to in BL (p=0.1) Comparing BL with the molecular subgroups of DLBCL, the frequently observed gains of chromosome 3 in ABC DLBCL were infrequent in BL (p=0.035), as were gains in 18q21-q23 (p=0.01) and losses of 6q16-q27 (p=0.02). No statistically significant differences were found regarding the genetic constitution of BL and the GCB DLBCL subgroup.
Comparison of genomic imbalances between adult and pediatric Burkitts lymphoma cases
To elucidate whether certain chromosomal alterations were associated with pediatric (age
18 years) or adult BL, we compared CGH alterations between these different age groups (27 adult and 24 pediatric cases). Nineteen of the 27 adult patients (70%) and 18 of the 24 pediatric cases (75%) displayed detectable alterations. Overall, adult BL patients had a significantly higher complexity of abnormalities than pediatric cases (3.1 abnormalities per tumor in adults versus 1.5 in the pediatric group). Further analysis showed that this was entirely accounted for by the group of eight discrepant BL. Excluding these cases from the adult group, the complexity (both 1.5 abnormalities per tumor) and also the pattern of alterations was similar in adult and pediatric BL (Figure 2A and 2B). Based on these results, we tested whether differences in overall gene expression exist between pediatric and adult BL. Searching the gene expression data generated previously on an Affymetrix custom oligonucleotide microarray with 2524 unique genes,4 no statistically significant differences could be detected and the attempt to establish a gene expression-based predictor of pediatric and adult BL failed (data not shown).
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B target genes" and "MHC class I genes" were expressed at very low levels in BL, whereas, by the very nature of the pathogenesis of BL, the "MYC and target genes" signature is increased. Germinal center B cell-associated genes showed a heterogeneous picture including genes expressed more highly in BL ("BL-high" signature), genes with reduced expression levels ("BL-low" signature) and genes with equal expression between BL and DLBCL (BL=GCB signature).4 Here, we sought to determine whether certain genetic alterations in BL were associated with increased or decreased expression of any of these signatures, since the altered chromosomal regions may harbor master regulators of these pathways. Indeed, gains of the 17q11-q25 region were associated with increased expression of the NF-
B signature (p=0.046), whereas gains of different regions of chromosome 1 (1cen-q12 and 1q21-q32) were associated with the specific "BL-high" signature (p=0.035) and the more general germinal center associated "BL=GCB" signature (p=0.04). | Discussion |
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In a global view, the CGH-defined genetic alterations in all BL cases in our series are well in accordance with the published literature. With regards to the morphological subgroups of gene expression-defined BL, however, the finding that classic and atypical BL did not differ in underlying genomic imbalances in concert with the presence of an identical gene expression profile4,5 provides further evidence that classic and atypical BL are, except for minor differences in morphological features, highly similar on the molecular level. These results may, therefore, support the view that classic and atypical BL comprise one molecular entity and provide a molecular rationale for the current practice of including patients with both classic and atypical BL in the same prospective trials. Despite showing a gene expression signature of BL, some of the discrepant BL (i.e. B-cell lymphomas that currently do not fulfill the WHO criteria of BL) may be genetically distinct from classic and atypical BL. First, this subgroup contains aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphomas carrying both the translocations t(14;18) and t(8;14)(dual translocation or double-hit lymphomas) as did three of the discrepant BL in our study. These lymphomas had been described in earlier reports and are characterized by an extremely aggressive clinical course that is fatal in almost all cases.13,18 It is unlikely that in these dual translocation cases the potentially secondary rearrangement of MYC alone accounts for the BL gene expression signature, since the gene expression predictor is clearly able to discriminate BL with MYC rearrangement from DLBCL with MYC rearrangement. From a different perspective, a number of DLBCL carrying a MYC rearrangement are not identified as having a BL gene expression signature in the published studies.4,5
In addition, our results demonstrate complex genetic alterations in discrepant BL with significantly higher numbers of chromosomal gains, and losses and total number of alterations than classic and atypical BL. Interestingly, discrepant BL - although corresponding morphologically to DLBCL in most cases – do not appear to carry some of the alterations typically observed in DLBCL.14 Instead, discrepant BL frequently carry aberrations not seen in either BL or DLBCL (gains of 1q31-q32, 13q11-q13, 13q33 and losses of 13q14) suggesting that some discrepant BL may represent a new genetic entity distinct from classic and atypical BL as well as from DLBCL. This view is further supported by the findings that patients with discrepant BL were significantly older and that this disease was equally distributed between males and females, in contrast to classic and atypical BL that predominantly affect males. Finally, the clinical course of discrepant BL appears to be dramatically different and usually rapidly fatal, although this finding must be viewed with caution, since some patients in our series did not receive intensified treatment regimens. At first glance, the dismal clinical course may appear contradictory to the findings in the study by Hummel et al.5 in which cases with a molecular BL signature had a favorable prognosis, regardless of their morphological appearance of classic/atypical BL or DLBCL. However, a straightforward comparison between the discrepant BL in our series and the potentially corresponding 11 DLBCL cases with a molecular BL profile described by Hummel et al. is not easy at present, since detailed information on the genetic alterations and clinical course for each case awaits publication. Nevertheless, there appears to be a general agreement between the two studies. First, the core and molecular BL categories in the study by Hummel et al. also contained lymphomas with increased genetic complexity and the frequency of these cases does not differ between the two studies. Second, the molecular BL cases5 also included a dual translocation case. A comparison of clinical findings is, however, compromised by the fact, that molecular BL cases in the study by Hummel et al. were enriched for younger patients, which may explain the more favorable outcome.
Another major aim of this study was to compare gene expression and genetic features between pediatric and adult cases of BL. Currently, pediatric BL patients are treated in prospective clinical trials separately from adult BL patients. However, the adaptation of therapeutic protocols initially designed for pediatric patients to adults has led to improved survival times for adult BL patients in recent years.19,20 Gene expression data4 and, in addition, genetic data obtained in the current report failed to provide evidence that molecular differences exist between pediatric and adult BL. Our CGH analysis revealed genetic imbalances in 75% of pediatric and 70% of adult BL patients and the spectrum of genetic alterations did not differ between the two groups. Moreover, no gene expression-based predictor could be constructed that was able to distinguish between patients with molecular BL in different age groups. It should be noted that the resolution of conventional CGH for detecting genomic alterations is limited and that high resolution techniques, such as array CGH, will reveal smaller alterations and more complex findings, e.g. a small biallelic loss in a chromosomal region that shows a gain on a larger scale. However, our finding that pediatric and adult BL patients show no significant differences in underlying genetic alterations is supported by unpublished data from the German Network Project Molecular Mechanisms in Malignant Lymphomas (W. Klapper, personal communication). Taken together, these data provide the rationale that future targeted therapeutic approaches in BL may be aimed at both pediatric and adult age groups and may be modified according to clinical factors that can limit therapy (e.g. dose intensity).
Finally, we demonstrated that chromosomal imbalances in frequently affected regions lead to locus-specific as well as global gene expression changes. For example, in the chromosomal region 1q, upregulation of NOTCH2, MCL1 and BCL9 may be pathogenetically relevant by altering apoptotic properties of the malignant B cells. On a global level, gains in 1q correlated with an increased expression of germinal center-associated genes that are characteristically expressed at high levels in BL ("BL-high" signature) suggesting that this BL-specific phenotype may be orchestrated by important regulators in this genetic region. Likewise, genetic losses in the chromosomal region 17p13-pter lead to major gene expression changes affecting almost half of the genes located in this region. Besides alterations of the tumor suppressor TP53, other genes, such as Aurora kinase B (AURKB) may influence the biological behavior as a consequence of deregulated expression.
In summary, we show that classic and atypical BL carrying a molecular profile of BL, as defined by gene expression profiling, do not differ in gene expression or underlying chromosomal alterations, whereas a subset of discrepant BL, despite its BL-characteristic gene expression profile, may form a genetic entity distinct from classic and atypical BL as well as DLBCL. Furthermore, we failed to identify gene expression or genetic differences between molecularly defined cases of pediatric and adult BL supporting the notion that BL in both age groups should be viewed as one molecular entity.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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The authors wish to thank Theodora Nedeva for superb technical assistance.
IS, AZ, SB, AR and EC designed the study and coordinated its execution, and collected the data; IS, AZ, SB, EH, AR and EC wrote the manuscript; GO, AL-G, RDG, ESJ, EGB, PMK, DW, LR, RMB, JD, WCC, HKMH, AR, EC provided study materials and/or clinical data of the patients; IS, AZ, SB, EH, SD, HW, AL-G, LMS, AR and EC analyzed and interpreted the data.
All the authors mentioned were involved in the revision and final approval of the version to be published.
The authors reported no potential conflicts of interest.
Funding: supported by grants from the Spanish Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) SAF05/5855, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Red Temática de Investigacion Cooperativa de Cáncer, by the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research (IZKF) of the University of Würzburg, Germany (AR, EH), and by an NIH grant (UO1-CA84967) from the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA, (WCC, AR, EC, GO, HKMH).
Received for publication March 17, 2008. Revision received May 25, 2008. Accepted for publication June 9, 2008.
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