Morphologically normal, CD30-negative B-lymphocytes with chromosome aberrations in classical Hodgkin's disease: the progenitor cell of the malignant clone?
✍ Scribed by Jansen, Maurice P. H. M.; Hopman, Anton H. N.; Bot, Fredrik J.; Haesevoets, Annick; Stevens-Kroef, Marian J. P. L.; Arends, Jan Willem; Jox, Andrea; Wolf, J�rgen; Ramaekers, Frans C. S.; Schouten, Harry C.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 235 KB
- Volume
- 189
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-3417
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✦ Synopsis
A recent study observed that numerical chromosome abnormalities in Hodgkin's disease (HD) are detected not only in morphologically abnormal Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells, but also in a fraction of morphologically normal cells. However, the phenotypic constitution of these genetically abnormal, morphologically normal cells and their relationship to the malignant Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells could not be established in the earlier cases studied, because of the low frequency of these cells. The present study investigated two cases of classical Hodgkin's disease containing a relatively large population of such apparently normal cells with aberrant chromosome copy numbers. The phenotype and their position within the developmental route of the malignant compartment were examined by a combined in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry approach. Numerical abnormalities for chromosome 1 in one case and for chromosomes X, Y, and 1 in the other case were observed not only in CD30-positive Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells, but also in CD30-negative, morphologically normal cells. It was shown that these genetically aberrant cells expressed the B-cell antigen CD19, thus confirming their B-cell nature. These studies indicate a relationship between the genome aberrations in these genetically abnormal, morphologically normal B-cells and the Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells, suggesting that they are progenitor cells of the malignant cell fraction.