Work

Genetic diversity of newly diagnosed follicular lymphoma

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: Follicular lymphoma (FL) is the second most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and often follows an indolent disease course with slow progression. 1 , 2 However, patients may develop resistant disease; in addition, transformation to a more aggressive subtype of lymphoma occurs at a rate of 2–3% per year. 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 FL arises from germinal center B cells and the most common molecular defect is t(14;18)(q32;q21) in 85–90% of the cases, which results in the IGH-BCL2 fusion gene and the overexpression of the anti-apoptotic oncogene BCL2 . 7 However, the t(14;18) is also observed in healthy individuals and FL patients who are in long-term remission 2 suggesting the existence of additional genomic alternations that impact disease course. Recently, massive parallel exome or whole genome sequencing of FL tumors and follow-up validation studies have discovered that point mutations in genes involved in epigenetic regulation and chromatin modification, including MLL2 , EZH2 , CREBBP , EP300 and MEF2B , dominate the FL landscape. 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 Mutations in JAK-STAT pathway genes and B-cell receptor ( BCR )/ NF- κ B signaling genes have also been identified, but with lower frequencies. 11

Source: Blood Cancer Journal

DOI: 10.1038/bcj.2014.80