Bortezomib Resistance in Mantle Cell Lymphoma Is Associated with Expression of a Plasmacytoid Differentiation Program

• Published in: Blood 2009-11, Vol.114 (22), p.287-287
• Main Authors: Perez Galan, Patricia, Jensen, Helena Mora, Weniger, Marc A, Chapman, Colby M, Liu, Poching, Raghavachari, Nalini, Shaffer, Arthur L, Staudt, Louis M., Wiestner, Adrian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0006-4971; 1528-0020
• DOI: 10.1182/blood.V114.22.287.287

Abstract 287 Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a lymphoproliferative disorder of mature B-cells with an aggressive course and short survival. The proteasome inhibitor bortezomib (BZM) induces clinical responses in up to 50% of patients. Conversely, in half of the cases the lymphoma cells are intrinsically resistant or rapidly develop resistance to BZM. To investigate the mechanisms of BZM resistance, we generated HBL2 and JEKO bortezomib resistant (HBL2-BR, JEKO-BR) derivative lines by continuous culture in sub-lethal concentrations of BZM. After several months, clones of HBL2-BR and JEKO-BR were obtained showing BZM IC50 at 48h of 41.6 and 44.6 nM, compared to 6 and 4.9 nM for the respective parental lines. Acquired resistance to BZM remained stable over months but gradually decreased with extended passages in the absence of BZM, suggesting adaptive changes rather than a single gene mutation as the basis of BZM resistance. BR cells exhibited higher proteasome activity, which was dose-dependently inhibited by higher concentrations of BZM. However, BR cells were able to survive with lower proteasome activity than the parental cells, indicating that BR cells had acquired additional changes. To investigate these changes, we use gene expression profiling (GEP) on Affymetrix U133A plus 2 arrays to compared HBL2-BR (in triplicate) and JEKO-BR (in duplicate) subclones to the corresponding parental lines. Unexpectedly, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) of microarray data revealed reduced expression of the mature B-cell gene signature (including genes for CD19, BLNK, SPIB, SYK) and increased expression of plasma cell differentiation signatures (including genes for CD38, IRF4, BLIMP, CD138) in both HBL-2 BR and JEKO-BR. BR lines also expressed higher protein levels of the master plasma cell regulators BLIMP and IRF4, but did not show enhanced expression of the secretory program controlled by XBP1. Flow cytometry analysis confirmed that BR cells had dramatically reduced expression of B-cell surface markers, including CD19, CD24 and CD52, and expressed plasma cell markers, such as CD38 and CD138. Consistent with a partial plasmacytoid phenotype, BR cells tended to be somewhat larger and more granular than parental cells. Loss of BZM resistance over months of culture in the absence of BZM was paralleled by the recovery of CD19 and CD24 expression and down-regulation of CD38, supporting a mechanistic link between the acquisition of a plasmacytoid phenotype and BZM resista