Small Nucleolar RNA Expression Profiling Identifies Potential Prognostic Markers in Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma

• Published in: Blood 2012-11, Vol.120 (21), p.2678-2678
• Main Authors: Ysebaert, Loic, Valleron, Wilfried, Berquet, Laure, Fataccioli, Virginie, Quelen, Cathy, Martin, Antoine, Parrens, Marie, Lamant, Laurence, de Leval, Laurence, Gisselbrecht, Christian, Gaulard, Philippe, Brousset, Pierre
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0006-4971; 1528-0020
• DOI: 10.1182/blood.V120.21.2678.2678

Abstract 2678 Peripheral T-cell Lymphomas (PTCL) are types of rare and heterogeneous Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) that, in general, are associated with a poor clinical outcome. Discovery of new prognostic tools is thus a current and major challenge. In a cohort of 122 cases of PTCL collected from a multicentric T-cell lymphoma consortium (TENOMIC), we analyzed the expression of 80 non-coding small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNA) using high-throughput quantitative PCR (Fluidigm). SnoRNAs belong to the non-coding RNA family, and participate to diverse biological processes, most importantly ribosomal RNA maturation. PTCL samples (n=122, 32 ALCL (22 ALK+, 10 ALK-) and 90 non-ALCL cases) were collected from TENOMIC. For each case, a consensus diagnosis was made by a panel of expert hemopathologists (some of the patients participated in a GELA-sponsored clinical trial, the others benefited from a national review protocol for T-cell lymphomas). Total RNA from sorted healthy donor-derived T-lymphocytes (n=35) and tumor samples were extracted (Trizol), integrity was verified using Agilent NanoChip, and reverse transcribed and assessed for snoRNA expression levels using The Fluidigm high-throughput quantitative PCR method. Medical cases were used to calculate progression-free and overall survival (PFS and OS) in 78 non-ALCL patients (26 PTCL-NOS, 46 AITL, 6 other rare entities) who received CHOP or CHOP-like regimen first-line. First, we used unsupervised hierarchical clustering to show that, irrespectively from cell of the origin of the T cells, PTCL cells had a significant down-regulation of snoRNA expression in 63% of the snoRNA tested. In particular, there was a clear delineation between AITL, a tumor of T-follicular Helper (TFH) origin, and normal TFH cells from healthy donors. Among PTCL entities, ALCL had a specific snoRNA profile, but unsupervised clustering was not able to distinguish ALK- from ALK+ patients. However, a supervised comparison identified snoRNA U3 as a discriminant marker that sorted ALK+ from ALK- ALCL samples. Unsupervised or supervised snoRNA clustering failed to distinguish AITL from the other subgroups of PTCL. Second, we assessed prognostic impact of snoRNA expression in 78 non-ALCL patients. Characteristics of the cohorts were as follows: median age 65y/74y, Ann-Arbor stage III-IV in 94%/88%, elevated LDH in 76.7%/73.1%, IPI score 3–5 in 70%/61%, respectively. Although the snoRNA expression profiles of AITL and other PTCL subtypes appeared ver