• Andrea Rinaldi, Afua Adjeiwaa Mensah, Ivo Kwee, Francesco Forconi, Ester M Orlandi, Marco Lucioni, Valter Gattei, Roberto Marasca, Françoise Berger, Sergio Cogliatti, Franco Cavalli, Emanuele Zucca, Gianluca Gaidano, Davide Rossi, and Francesco Bertoni.
• Lymphoma and Genomics Research Programme, IOR Institute of Oncology Research, Bellinzona, Switzerland.
• Br. J. Haematol. 2013 Oct 1; 163 (2): 194-204.

AbstractIn a fraction of patients, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) can transform to Richter syndrome (RS), usually a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). We studied genome-wide promoter DNA methylation in RS and clonally related CLL-phases of transformed patients, alongside de novo DLBCL (of non-germinal centre B type), untransformed-CLL and normal B-cells. The greatest differences in global DNA methylation levels were observed between RS and DLBCL, indicating that these two diseases, although histologically similar, are epigenetically distinct. RS was more highly methylated for genes involved in cell cycle regulation. When RS was compared to the preceding CLL-phase and with untransformed-CLL, RS presented a higher degree of methylation for genes possessing the H3K27me3 mark and PRC2 targets, as well as for gene targets of TP53 and RB1. Comparison of the methylation levels of individual genes revealed that OSM, a stem cell regulatory gene, exhibited significantly higher methylation levels in RS compared to CLL-phases. Its transcriptional repression by DNA methylation was confirmed by 5-aza-2'deoxycytidine treatment of DLBCL cells, determining an increased OSM expression. Our results showed that methylation patterns in RS are largely different from de novo DLBCL. Stem cell-related genes and cell cycle regulation genes are targets of DNA methylation in RS. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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