Novel IL-21 signaling pathway upregulates c-Myc and induces apoptosis of diffuse large B-cell lymphomas

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma is a heterogenous malignancy that is diagnosed in over 60,000 patients each year. Interleukin-21 has been shown to induce apoptosis in certain B cells originating from mice. Diffuse large B cell lyphomas express the Interleukin-21 Receptor yet the effects of Interleukin-21 on this malignancy are uknown. Identified genes responsive to IL-21 treatment in diffuse large B cell lymphoma. RC-K8 is a diffuse large B cell lymphoma cell line that responds to IL-21 stimulation with apoptosis. By chronically treating RC-K8 cells with IL-21 with increasing doses for 10 weeks we were able to generate a resistant RC-K8 cell line that will be referred to as RC-K8-R. Both RC-K8 and RC-K8-R cells were treated with IL-21 at 100ng/mL. After 6 hours of treatment cells were lysed and total mRNA was collected. Arrays were performed on Agilent Oligo microarrays. We used microarrays to detail the changes in gene expression upon Interleukin-21 treatment in diffuse large B cell lymphoma cell lines and observed distinct up-regulated and down-regulated genes. Replicates are not included. Human Reference RNA was used as reference.