Abstract

COTTLIAR, Alejandra S. H.; NORIEGA, María F.; NARBAITZ, Marina  and  SLAVUTSKY, Irma R.. Molecular  analysis of telomere length in follicular lymphomas. Its  participation in tumor progression. Medicina (B. Aires) [online]. 2005, vol.65, n.2, pp.143-146. ISSN 0025-7680.

Telomeres are essential for maintaining chromosomal integrity and stability. We studied here telomere length (TL) in bone marrow and/or lymph node from 36 patients: 29 with follicular lymphoma (FL) at diagnosis and 7 with diffuse large B cell lymphoma secondary to FL (S-DLBCL). TL was evaluated using terminal restriction fragments (TRF) assay. BCL-2 gene rearrangement was analyzed by nested and long distance PCR. Mean TRF values showed significant telomere shortening in FL (4.18±0.18 Kb) and S-DLBCL (3.31±0.25 Kb) respect to controls (8.50±0.50 Kb) (p<0.001). Differences between both histological subtypes (p=0.036) were also detected. Moreover, the samples positive for BCL-2 rearrangements showed longer TL (4.25±0.19 Kb) than the negative ones (3.39±0.30 Kb) (p=0.023). A trend to telomere shortening was observed when Major Breakpoint Region (MBR-J_H), minor cluster region (mcr-J_H) and BCL-2 negative patients were compared (4.35±0.21 Kb; 3.84±0.45 Kb and 3.39±0.30 Kb, respectively). Our results show a TL reduction in FL and S-DLBCL, with significant short TRFs in the last group, suggesting the participation of telomere shortening in tumor progression. Furthermore, the differences detected between BCL-2 positive and negative FL support the involvement of diverse pathogenic mechanisms.

Keywords : follicular lymphoma; diffuse large B cell lymphoma; telomeres; BCL-2.

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