Open Full Page
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Bcl-2 Overexpression Leads to Increases in Suppressor of Cytokine Signaling-3 Expression in B Cells and De novo Follicular Lymphoma Gary J. Vanasse,1 Robert K. Winn,4 Sofya Rodov,1 Arthur W. Zieske,2 John T. Li,4 Joan C. Tupper,3 Jingjing Tang,5 Elaine W. Raines,5 Mette A. Peters,6 Ka Yee Yeung,6 and John M. Harlan3 Departments of 1Internal Medicine and 2Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut and Departments of 3Internal Medicine, 4Surgery, and 5Pathology, School of Medicine, and 6Center for Expression Arrays, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington Abstract hyperplastic tonsil tissue. These data suggest that Bcl-2 The t(14;18)(q32;q21), resulting in deregulated overexpression leads to the induction of activated signal expression of B-cell-leukemia/lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) represents the genetic hallmark in human follicular and to the induction of SOCS3, which may contribute lymphomas. Substantial evidence supports the to the pathogenesis of follicular lymphoma. hypothesis that the t(14;18) and Bcl-2 overexpression (Mol Cancer Res 2004;2(11):620–31) are necessary but not solely responsible for neoplastic transformation and require cooperating genetic derangements for neoplastic transformation to occur. To Introduction investigate genes that cooperate with Bcl-2 to influence Follicular lymphomas comprise approximately one third of cellular signaling pathways important for neoplastic all cases of non–Hodgkin’s lymphoma in humans. Follicular transformation, we used oligonucleotide microarrays to lymphomas are initially clinically indolent and chemosensitive determine differential gene expression patterns in but have a natural history marked by multiple relapses, CD19+ B cells isolated from EM-Bcl-2 transgenic mice becoming progressively chemoresistant and ultimately remain- and wild-type littermate control mice. Fifty-seven genes ing incurable. Twenty-five percent to 60% of follicular were induced and 94 genes were repressed by >_2-fold in lymphomas also transform into more aggressive subtypes of EM-Bcl-2 transgenic mice (P < 0.05). The suppressor of non–Hodgkin’s lymphoma (1-3). Eighty-five percent of cytokine signaling-3 (SOCS3) gene was found to be follicular lymphomas harbor t(14;18)(q32;q21), resulting in overexpressed 5-fold in B cells from EM-Bcl-2 transgenic juxtaposition of the B-cell-leukemia/lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) mice. Overexpression of Bcl-2 in both mouse embryo proto-oncogene with the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) fibroblast-1 and hematopoietic cell lines resulted locus, typically upstream of one of the JH segments (4-8). in induction of SOCS3 protein, suggesting a Deregulated expression of Bcl-2 prolongs survival of B and T Bcl-2-associated mechanism underlying SOCS3 lymphocytes via abrogation of the majority of apoptotic induction. Immunohistochemistry with SOCS3 antisera pathways (8-10). Substantial evidence supports the hypothesis on tissue from a cohort of patients with de novo that t(14;18) and Bcl-2 overexpression are necessary but not follicular lymphoma revealed marked overexpression solely responsible for the genesis of follicular lymphomas. EA- of SOCS3 protein that, within the follicular center Bcl-2 transgenic mice uniformly develop polyclonal B-cell cell region, was limited to neoplastic follicular hyperplasia, but only 5% to 15% eventually progress to lymphoma cells and colocalized with Bcl-2 expression aggressive monoclonal B-cell lymphomas following a pro- in 9 of 12 de novo follicular lymphoma cases examined. tracted latency period and often in conjunction with cooperating In contrast, SOCS3 protein expression was not cytogenetic lesions (10-13). Further evidence supporting the detected in the follicular center cell region of benign notion that t(14;18) is not causative for the development of follicular lymphoma is that B cells harboring t(14;18) have been detected by PCR screening of peripheral blood and hyperplastic lymphoid tissue from healthy individuals (14-16), Received 7/6/04; revised 9/20/04; accepted 10/6/04. Grant support: NIH grants CA78254 (G.J. Vanasse) and 5U24DK058813-02 and this phenomenon seems to increase with age (17). Finally, (K.Y. Yeung), American Society of Hematology fellow scholar grant (G.J. the rare hematologic disorder, persistent polyclonal B-cell Vanasse), and NIH research grant CA-16359 from the National Cancer Institute. lymphocytosis, is characterized by chronic stable polyclonal The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in lymphocytosis that, despite the presence of Bcl-2 rearrange- accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. ments into the IgH locus, fails to overexpress Bcl-2 (18). These Notes: G.J. Vanasse is a past American Society of Hematology fellow scholar and data suggest that, although t(14;18) is sufficient to initiate an member of the Yale Cancer Center. Requests for reprints: Gary J. Vanasse, Section of Hematology, Department of oncogenic pathway, Bcl-2 alone is a relatively weak oncogene Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, WWW- and requires additional cooperating genetic lesions for neoplas- 403, Box 208021, New Haven, CT 06520. Phone: 203-737-2340; Fax: 203-785- 7232. E-mail: [email protected] tic transformation to occur. Although molecular analysis of Copyright D 2004 American Association for Cancer Research. human follicular lymphoma has revealed numerous cytogenetic 620 Mol Cancer Res 2004;2(11). November 2004 Downloaded from mcr.aacrjournals.org on September 25, 2021. © 2004 American Association for Cancer Research. Bcl-2-Associated SOCS3 Induction in Follicular Lymphoma 621 alterations potentially important for propagation of a neoplastic overexpressing polyclonal B cells as a template to identify clone (19), the significance of these secondary chromosomal genes also deregulated in de novo follicular lymphoma. We abnormalities in influencing clinical course and pathogenesis of purified primary B cells from EA-Bcl-2 transgenic mice and follicular lymphoma remains to be determined. wild-type LMC mice by negative selection and did oligonu- The application of oligonucleotide and cDNA microarray cleotide microarray analyses to formulate a differential gene technology to the study of non–Hodgkin’s lymphoma has expression profile. Phenotypes of the mice were similar to that provided insights into gene expression patterns that differentiate reported previously, with EA-Bcl-2 transgenic mice exhibiting malignant B cells from their normal counterparts, has defined B-cell hyperplasia as described (28). At the time of analysis, all prognostic subgroups, and has identified potential therapeutic mice were healthy and without evidence of tumor formation. targets (20-22). Gene profiling studies on follicular lymphoma Single cell suspensions of splenocytes were prepared from B cells have revealed a genetic signature similar to germinal spleens harvested from six 24-week-old EA-Bcl-2 transgenic center B cells; have identified differentially expressed genes and five age-matched wild-type LMC mice (C57BL/6 strain). involved in cellular pathways important for cell cycle reg- Immunomagnetic bead depletion was used to isolate naive B ulation, cell adhesion, cellular signaling, and B-cell develop- cells of primarily B2 subtype and devoid of B1 subtype, T cells, ment; and have shown that transformation of follicular monocytes, and natural killer cells. Negative selection of B cells lymphoma into diffuse large B-cell lymphomas requires distinct was done to avoid B-cell activation and its resultant gene genetic alterations (20, 23-27). However, much of the gene profile, which may confuse interpretation of the microarray expression analyses have been generated on follicular lympho- analysis. B cells were phenotyped and analyzed by flow ma B cells obtained from patients heavily treated for relapsed cytometry, revealing a >97% CD19+ pure population without disease, on t(14;18)+ cell lines rather than on primary cells, or detectable CD4+, CD8+, or CD56+ (data not shown). on RNA isolated from whole tissue biopsies rather than from purified follicular lymphoma cells. Therefore, these studies may be compromised in their ability to distinguish early, primary Oligonucleotide Microarray Analysis genetic events important for the genesis of follicular lymphoma To identify Bcl-2-mediated differential gene expression, we from the multitude of secondary genetic changes associated compared the CD19+ B-cell gene expression between trans- with disease progression, therapeutic intervention, or the cel- gene-positive and LMC mice by oligonucleotide microarray lular microenvironment. analysis. Target transcripts (15 Ag) from individual mice from The use of microarray technology to analyze gene each cohort were hybridized to Affymetrix murine U74v2 A, B, expression profiles in animal models of proto-oncogene and C chipsets (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA) consisting of deregulation may facilitate the identification of those primary >36,000 genes and expressed sequence tags. Individual array genetic events important for tumorigenesis in humans. We results obtained from the six EA-Bcl-2 transgenic and the five hypothesized that gene expression profiling of primary, LMC mice were summarized as one experimental array and one polyclonal B cells overexpressing Bcl-2 could serve as a tem- control array, respectively, and ratios