Haematologica (Oct 2010)

Stereotyped patterns of B-cell receptor in splenic marginal zone lymphoma

  • Silvia Zibellini,
  • Daniela Capello,
  • Francesco Forconi,
  • Paolo Marcatili,
  • Davide Rossi,
  • Sara Rattotti,
  • Silvia Franceschetti,
  • Elisa Sozzi,
  • Emanuele Cencini,
  • Roberto Marasca,
  • Luca Baldini,
  • Alessandra Tucci,
  • Francesco Bertoni,
  • Francesco Passamonti,
  • Ester Orlandi,
  • Marzia Varettoni,
  • Michele Merli,
  • Silvia Rizzi,
  • Valter Gattei,
  • Anna Tramontano,
  • Marco Paulli,
  • Gianluca Gaidano,
  • Luca Arcaini

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3324/haematol.2010.025437
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 95, no. 10

Abstract

Read online

Antigen stimulation may be important for splenic marginal zone lymphoma pathogenesis. To address this hypothesis, the occurrence of stereotyped B-cell receptors was investigated in 133 SMZL (26 HCV+) compared with 4,414 HCDR3 sequences from public databases. Sixteen SMZL (12%) showed stereotyped BCR; 7 of 86 (8%) SMZL sequences retrieved from public databases also belonged to stereotyped HCDR3 subsets. Three categories of subsets were identified: i) "SMZL-specific subsets" (n=5), composed only of 12 SMZL (9 HCV-from our series); ii) "Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma-like subsets" (n=5), comprising 5 SMZL (4 from our series) clustering with other indolent lymphomas; iii) “CLL-like subsets” (n=6), comprising 6 SMZL (3 from our series) that belonged to known CLL subsets (n=4) or clustered with public CLL sequences. Immunoglobulin 3D modeling of 3 subsets revealed similarities in antigen binding regions not limited to HCDR3. Overall, data suggest that the pathogenesis of splenic marginal zone lymphoma may involve also HCV-unrelated epitopes or an antigenic trigger common to other indolent lymphomas.