Molecular Classification of AIDS-Related Lymphomas

Gene expression profiling (GEP) of ARL patient samples was done to determine whether gene expression signatures derived from HIV- lymphomas retained their ability to molecularly classify HIV+ lymphomas. The GEP-based predictors robustly classified ARL tumors, distinguishing molecular Burkitt lymphoma (BL) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), as well as activated B-cell-like (ABC) and germinal center B-cell-like (GCB) molecular subtypes of DLBCL. Gene expression profiles were used to identify coordinately regulated gene sets and pathways that differ between HIV+ and HIV- lymphomas of corresponding molecular subtype. Frozen tumor biopsies were obtained from 20 HIV-positive patients with an AIDS-defining lymphoma. Cases were ascertained at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and through the NCI AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource tumor bank. Sufficient RNA for hybridization to Affymetrix U133 plus 2 arrays was obtained on 17 ARL cases. Details of all 20 HIV-positive patients can be found in the supplementary file below.