Transformation of follicular lymphoma to diffuse large-cell lymphoma: alternative patterns with increased or decreased expression of c-myc and its regulated genes

The natural history of follicular lymphoma (FL) is frequently characterized by transformation to a more aggressive diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). We compared the gene-expression profiles between transformed DLBCL and their antecedent FL. No genes were observed to increase or decrease their expression in all of the cases of histological transformation. However, two different gene-expression profiles associated with the transformation process were defined, one in which c-myc and genes regulated by c-myc showed increased expression and one in which these same genes showed decreased expression. Further, there was a striking difference in gene-expression profiles between transformed DLBCL and de novo DLBCL, because the gene-expression profile of transformed DLBCL was more similar to their antecedent FL than to de novo DLBCL. This study demonstrates that transformation from FL to DLBCL can occur by alternative pathways and that transformed DLBCL and de novo DLBCL have very different gene-expression profiles that may underlie the different clinical behaviors of these two types of morphologically similar lymphomas.