Serum autotaxin measurement in haematological malignancies: a promising marker for follicular lymphoma

Autotaxin (ATX) is a tumour cell motility-stimulating factor originally isolated from melanoma cell supernatants. ATX is identical to lysophospholipase D, which produces a bioactive lipid mediator, lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), from lysophosphatidylcholine. ATX is overexpressed in various malignancies, including Hodgkin lymphoma, and ATX may stimulate tumour progression via LPA production. The present study measured the serum ATX antigen levels in patients with haematological malignancies using a recently developed automated enzyme immunoassay. The serum ATX antigen levels in patients with B-cell neoplasms, especially follicular lymphoma (FL), were higher than those in healthy subjects. Serum ATX antigen levels in FL patients were associated with tumour burden and changed in parallel with the patients' clinical courses. The serum ATX antigen levels were little affected by inflammation, unlike the soluble interleukin-2 receptor and beta2-microglobulin levels. As expected, the plasma LPA levels in FL patients were correlated with the serum ATX antigen levels. Given that leukaemic tumour cells from FL patients expressed ATX, the shedding of ATX from lymphoma cells probably leads to the elevation of serum ATX antigen levels. Our results suggest that the serum ATX antigen level may be a promising and novel marker for FL.