Mutational Status of Splenic Diffuse Red Pulp Small B-Cell Lymphoma Revealed By Whole Exome Sequencing

Background: Splenic diffuse red pulp lymphoma (SDRPL) is a rare small B cell neoplasm provisionally included in a category of unclassifiable splenic B-cell lymphoma/leukemias in the 2008 WHO classification. SDRPL is characterized by a diffuse pattern of involvement of the splenic red pulp by small monomorphous B lymphocytes. Patients are normally diagnosed at stage IV when spleen, bone marrow and peripheral blood are involved. This indolent but incurable disease is more common in aged males and it shows with splenomegaly and moderate lymphocytosis. The differential diagnosis with other splenic lymphomas such as marginal zone lymphoma, hairy cell lymphoma and its variant is not always easy, due to the similar clinical presentation and the absence of specific molecular markers.  Here we studied the mutational status of 15 SDRPL patients using Whole Exome Next Generation Sequencing.

Methods: Genomic DNA was extracted from FFPE/FF splenic tumor or bone marrow samples. When available, DNA from oral mucosa was obtained as the corresponding non-tumor control. Whole exome sequencing was performed at CNAG (Barcelona, Spain) following standard protocols for high-throughput paired-end sequencing on the Illumina HiSeq2000 instruments (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA). Validation of variants was performed by PCR based targeted resequencing using a MiSeq instrument (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA).

We performed paired-end-76pb whole exome sequencing on DNA from 15 SDRPL patients. The corresponding normal counterpart from 3 of the patients was sequenced. From one patient FFPE and bone marrow DNA was available for comparison. In total 9 FFPE tissue samples, 3 FF tissue samples, and 4 bone marrow samples were sequenced. Almost 95% of the selected variants were validated by PCR based resequencing in 9 of the patients, while from 6 of the patients no tissue was available for validation

Results: 290 substitutions and 26 indels were obtained after filtering. Whole exome sequencing permitted us to identify variations in several genes of relevant pathways in lymphomas, such as NFkB pathway (IkBKB, TRAF, TANK, SYK), Apoptosis (BAD, DCPS, BCLAF1), MAPK (CXCR4, TCF3, NF1, MAP3K5), Cell cycle (CCND3, POLD3, BUB1), Chromatin (CREBBP, ARID1A, ARID1B, ARID3A, MLL3), MYC regulators (AKAP10, CTCF, EP400) or WNT signaling (SALL1, WNT5B, GPC6). Moreover, CCND3 and MLL3 were recurrently mutated in 2 different patients. Genes specifically found mutated in other splenic malignancies, such as NOTCH2, BRAF, MAP2K1, and KLF2 were not found mutated in this series of SDRPL patients.

Conclusions: SDRPL samples contain somatic mutations involving genes regulating relevant pathways for cell survival, such as NFkB, apoptosis, cell cycle, chromatin, or WNT. The mutational signature of the series studied here may indicate that SDRPL is a distinct entity with specific molecular features different to other lymphoid splenic malignancies.