Abstract
Specific defects in DNA repair pathways are reflected by DNA microsatellite instability (MSI) and play an important role in carcinogenesis. Reported frequencies in gastric non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHL) vary from 14% to as high as 90%. Another form of genetic instability in tumours is allelic imbalance (AI) due to loss or gain of genetic material at a specific chromosomal region. This might point to the presence of a tumour suppressor gene or oncogene. We examined both MSI and AI in 26 gastric lymphomas (10 low-grade and 13 high-grade MALT lymphomas and three cases lacking MALT features and categorised as diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLCL)). Tumour components and normal cells (epithelium, muscle) were microdissected from paraffin-embedded resection samples. Contrary to other studies we did not observe frequent MSI when investigating 18 different loci distributed over 12 chromosomes. Microsatellite instability of a single locus was found in 1/10 (10%) low-grade MALT lymphomas and 2/13 (15%) high-grade MALT lymphomas. These data indicate that DNA mismatch repair genes do not play a role in the pathogenesis of these lymphomas. Allelic imbalance was detected in 60% (6/10) of low-grade MALT lymphomas, in 62% (8/13) of high-grade MALT lymphoma and in 67% (2/3) of DLCL. In high-grade lymphomas more loci showed AI (one to seven loci, with a mean of 2.5 loci per case) than in the low-grade lymphomas (one to two loci, with a mean of 1.3 loci per case), possibly reflecting an increased genomic instability.
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Hoeve, M., Mota, S., Schuuring, E. et al. Frequent allelic imbalance but infrequent microsatellite instability in gastric lymphoma. Leukemia 13, 1804–1811 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2401554
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2401554
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