Guidolin Diego, Tamma Roberto, Annese Tiziana, Tortorella Cinzia, Ingravallo Giuseppe, Gaudio Francesco, Musto Pellegrino, Specchia Giorgina, Ribatti Domenico
Department of Neuroscience, Section of Anatomy, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Medical School, Bari, Italy.
Pathol Res Pract. 2023 Aug;248:154661. doi: 10.1016/j.prp.2023.154661. Epub 2023 Jul 1.
Tumor growth, progression, and metastatic capability in non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) are influenced by different component of tumor microenvironment, including inflammatory cells. Among these latter, mast cells play a crucial role. The spatial distribution of mast cells inside the tumor stroma of different types of B-cell NHLs has not yet been investigated. The aim of this study is to analyze the pattern of distribution of mast cells in biopsy samples obtained from three different types of B-cell NHLs by utilizing an image analysis system and a mathematical model to allow a quantitative estimation to characterize their spatial distribution. As concerns the spatial distributions exhibited by mast cells in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), some clustering was detected in both activated B-like (ABC) and germinal center B-like (GBC) groups. In follicular lymphoma (FL), mast cell spatial distribution tends to uniformly fill the tissue space as far as the grade of the pathology increases. Finally, in marginal lymphoma tissue (MALT) lymphoma, mast cells maintain a significantly clustered spatial distribution, suggesting a lower tendency of the cells to fill the tissue space in this pathological condition. Overall, the data of this study confirm that the analysis of the spatial distribution of the tumor cells is of particular significance for the knowledge of the biological processes occurring in tumor stroma and for the development of parameters to characterize the morphologic organization of the cellular patterns in different types of tumors.
非霍奇金淋巴瘤（NHL）的肿瘤生长、进展和转移能力受肿瘤微环境的不同成分影响，包括炎症细胞。在这些炎症细胞中，肥大细胞起着关键作用。不同类型B细胞NHL肿瘤基质内肥大细胞的空间分布尚未得到研究。本研究的目的是利用图像分析系统和数学模型，分析从三种不同类型B细胞NHL获取的活检样本中肥大细胞的分布模式，以便进行定量估计，从而表征其空间分布。关于肥大细胞在弥漫性大B细胞淋巴瘤（DLBCL）中呈现的空间分布，在活化B样（ABC）和生发中心B样（GBC）组中均检测到一些聚集现象。在滤泡性淋巴瘤（FL）中，随着病理分级增加，肥大细胞的空间分布倾向于均匀填充组织空间。最后，在边缘区淋巴瘤组织（MALT）淋巴瘤中，肥大细胞保持明显的聚集空间分布，这表明在这种病理状态下，细胞填充组织空间的倾向较低。总体而言，本研究数据证实，分析肿瘤细胞的空间分布对于了解肿瘤基质中发生的生物学过程以及制定表征不同类型肿瘤细胞模式形态组织的参数具有特别重要的意义。
