High-throughput sequencing of the B-cell receptor in African Burkitt Lymphoma reveals clues to pathogenesis

Endemic Burkitt lymphoma is an aggressive B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma with the highest incidence in children of sub-Saharan Africa where its distribution is closely associated with Plasmodium falciparum malaria and Epstein Barr virus (EBV) infection. We used high throughput RNA sequencing to analyze human and EBV gene expression, extract immunoglobulin heavy and light chain sequences, and identify nucleotide variants in tumors from patients with histologically confirmed Burkitt lymphoma. Total RNA was extracted using the RNeasy Plus Mini Kit (Qiagen) from 18 cryopreserved tumor biopsies acquired from patients who presented to the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala, Uganda. PolyA-selected mRNA sequencing libraries were prepared using the TruSeq kit v2 kit (Illumina) and 50 bp, paired-end sequencing was performed on the Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform at a depth of 100 million reads per sample.