Frequent structural variations involving programmed death ligands in Epstein-Barr virus-associated lymphomas.
Kataoka K, Miyoshi H, Sakata S, Dobashi A, Couronné L, Kogure Y, Sato Y, Nishida K, Gion Y, Shiraishi Y, Tanaka H, Chiba K, Watatani Y, Kakiuchi N, Shiozawa Y, Yoshizato T, Yoshida K, Makishima H, Sanada M, Onozawa M, Teshima T, Yoshiki Y, Ishida T, Suzuki K, Shimada K, Tomita A, Kato M, Ota Y, Izutsu K, Demachi-Okamura A, Akatsuka Y, Miyano S, Yoshino T, Gaulard P, Hermine O, Takeuchi K, Ohshima K, Ogawa S.
Source :
Leukemia
2019 Jul 1
Pmid / DOI:
30683910
Abstract
Viral infection induces potent cellular immunity and activated intracellular signaling, which may dictate the driver events involved in immune escape and clonal selection of virus-associated cancers, including Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive lymphomas. Here, we thoroughly interrogated PD-L1/PD-L2-involving somatic aberrations in 384 samples from various lymphoma subtypes using high-throughput sequencing, particularly focusing on virus-associated lymphomas. A high frequency of PD-L1/PD-L2-involving genetic aberrations was observed in EBV-positive lymphomas [33 (22%) of 148 cases], including extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTL, 23%), aggressive NK-cell leukemia (57%), systemic EBV-positive T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder (17%) as well as EBV-positive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL, 19%) and peripheral T-cell lymphoma-not otherwise specified (15%). Predominantly causing a truncation of the 3'-untranslated region, these alterations represented the most prevalent somatic lesions in ENKTL. By contrast, the frequency was much lower in EBV-negative lymphomas regardless of histology type [12 (5%) of 236 cases]. Besides PD-L1/PD-L2 alterations, EBV-positive DLBCL exhibited a genetic profile distinct from EBV-negative one, characterized by frequent TET2 and DNMT3A mutations and the paucity of CD79B, MYD88, CDKN2A, and FAS alterations. Our findings illustrate unique genetic features of EBV-associated lymphomas, also suggesting a potential role of detecting PD-L1/PD-L2-involving lesions for these lymphomas to be effectively targeted by immune checkpoint blockade.