Senckenberg Institute of Pathology, University of Frankfurt, Theodor-Stern-Kai 7, 60596, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
BMC Cancer. 2012 Jun 6;12:215. doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-12-215.
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is one of the most frequent lymphoma in the western world. Despite a good overall prognosis, some patients suffer relapsing tumors which are difficult to cure. Over a long period Vitamin D has been shown to be a potential treatment for cancer. Vitamin D acts via the vitamin D receptor, a nuclear receptor, acting as an inducible transcription factor. We aimed to investigate the expression of vitamin D receptor as a possible diagnostic marker and potential therapeutic target in HL as well as in B-cell derived non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL).
We used a panel of 193 formalin fixed tissues of lymphoma cases consisting of 55 cases of HL and 138 cases on several B-NHL entities.
Vitamin D receptor is strongly expressed in tumor cells of HL, regardless of the sub entity with an overall positivity of 80% of all HL cases. In contrast, only about 17% of the analyzed origin-NHL showed positivity for vitamin D receptor. The detection of nuclear localization of vitamin D receptor in the tumor cells of HL suggests activated status of the vitamin D receptor.
Our study suggests VDR as a specific marker for tumor cells of HL, but not of B-NHL subtypes. Further, the observed nuclear localization suggests an activated receptor status in tumor cells of HL. Further investigations of mutational status and functional studies may shed some light in functional relevance of vitamin D receptor signaling in HL.
霍奇金淋巴瘤（HL）是西方世界最常见的淋巴瘤之一。尽管总体预后良好，但仍有一些患者的肿瘤复发，难以治愈。长期以来，维生素 D 一直被认为是癌症的潜在治疗方法。维生素 D 通过维生素 D 受体发挥作用，维生素 D 受体是一种核受体，作为诱导转录因子发挥作用。我们旨在研究维生素 D 受体在 HL 以及 B 细胞来源的非霍奇金淋巴瘤（B-NHL）中的表达，作为一种可能的诊断标志物和潜在的治疗靶点。
我们使用了一组由 193 例福尔马林固定的淋巴瘤病例组成的面板，包括 55 例 HL 病例和 138 例 B-NHL 实体。
维生素 D 受体在 HL 的肿瘤细胞中强烈表达，无论亚实体如何，所有 HL 病例的总体阳性率为 80%。相比之下，只有约 17%的分析来源-NHL 对维生素 D 受体呈阳性。HL 肿瘤细胞中维生素 D 受体的核定位检测表明维生素 D 受体处于激活状态。
我们的研究表明 VDR 是 HL 肿瘤细胞的特异性标志物，但不是 B-NHL 亚型的标志物。此外，观察到的核定位表明 HL 肿瘤细胞中的受体处于激活状态。进一步研究突变状态和功能研究可能会揭示维生素 D 受体信号在 HL 中的功能相关性。
