MicroRNA expression in Sézary syndrome: Identification, function, and diagnostic potential

Abstract

MicroRNAs are commonly aberrantly expressed inmanycancers.Very little isknown of their role in T-cell lymphoma, however. We therefore elucidated the complete miR-Nome of purified T cells from 21 patients diagnosed with Sézary Syndrome (SzS), a rare aggressive primary cutaneous T-cell (CD4+) lymphoma. Unsupervised cluster analysis of microarray data revealed that the microRNA expression profile was distinct from CD4+ T-cell controls and B-cell lymphomas. The majority (104 of 114) of SzS-associated microRNAs (P < .05) were down-regulated and their expression pattern was largely consistent with previously reported genomic copy number abnormalities and were found to be highly enriched (P < .001) for aberrantly expressed target genes. Levels of miR-223 distinguished SzS samples (n = 32) from healthy controls (n = 19) and patients with mycosis fungoides (n = 11) inmorethan90%of samples. Furthermore,wedemonstrate that the down-regulation of intronically encoded miR-342 plays a role in the pathogenesis of SzS by inhibiting apoptosis, and describe a novel mechanism of regulation for this microRNA via binding of miR-199a* to its host gene. We also provide the first in vivo evidence for down-regulation of the miR-17-92 cluster in malignancy and demonstrate that ectopic miR-17-5p expression increases apoptosis and decreases cell proliferation in SzS cells. © 2010 by The American Society of Hematology.