Divergent immunohistochemical expression of CD21 and CD23 by follicular dendritic cells with increasing grade of follicular lymphoma

Abstract

Background Ultrastructural and immunohistochemical differences have been described in FDCs of primary and secondary follicles, illustrating the highly compartmentalized structure of lymph follicles. Differences in FDC immunophenotype in different grades of FL may reflect some parallelism between reactive and neoplastic conditions in terms of FDC-B cell interaction and may be used as a valuable additional tool for grading FL. Methods A total of 60 paraffin blocks from patients with follicular lymphoma, 30 cases each of grade 1 and 3, were retrieved from our archive. Immunohistochemical analysis was carried out for CD21, CD23, cyclin A, and Ki-67. Results Our study demonstrates that during evaluation, six patterns of FDC distribution were distinguished. The intensity of stain for CD21 was not statistically significant in grade 1 and grade 3 FL ( p = 0.340). In contrast, grade 3 FLs exhibited a significant decrease of CD23 expression by the FDCs ( p < 0.001). By CD21 stain, there was no significant difference in the distribution of pattern 1 in grades 1 and 3 ( p = 0.098). In contrast, in grade 3, this pattern was significantly less observed by CD23 stain ( p = 0.016). The same was observed for pattern 2 for CD21 ( p = 0.940) and CD23 ( p = 0.010) and pattern 4 for CD21 ( p = 0.305) and CD23 ( p = 0.005), respectively. Distribution of pattern 5 was significantly different between grades 1 and 3 both for CD21 ( p = 0.005) and CD23 ( p < 0.001). Distribution of patterns 2 and 6 was not significantly different between grades 1 and 3 for CD21 and CD23. The values of cyclin A and Mib-1 were also significantly different between grades 1 and 3 ( p < 0.001). Conclusions The observed patterns of FDCs lead us to believe that similar to reactive lymph node follicles, neoplastic follicles in FL, at least in early stages, have an organized structure. Hypothetically, with CD21, CD23, and cyclin A immunohistochemistry, the sequence of events in FL progression may be traced.

Transcriptome Sequencing Reveals Potential Roles of ICOS in Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome

“…In our study, massive B cells were found to be significantly infiltrated in the SGs of pSS by immune infiltration analysis, which is consistent with the high expression levels of MS4A1. In addition, complement receptor 2 (CR2/CD21) was located at follicular dendritic cell networks for the development of ectopic lymphoid structures in labial gland biopsies of patients with SS (Bombardieri and Pitzalis, 2012;Kurshumliu et al, 2019). Similarly, the branchpoint-site single-nucleotide polymorphisms rs17266594 and rs10516487 in the B cell scaffold protein with ankyrin repeats 1 (BANK1) gene have been testified to be associated with various autoimmune diseases including SLE (Guan et al, 2011), RA (Orozco et al, 2009), and SSc (Rueda et al, 2010).…”

The diagnostic and therapeutic challenges of Grade 3B follicular lymphoma

“…[25][26][27] In contrast, the expression of BCL6 and CD21 does not appear to vary according to grade. 5,22,27…”

“…Multiple myeloma oncogene 1 (MUM1), a marker of late‐stage GC or post GCB cells and present in approximately half of DLBCL cases, has been shown to be more common in G3 (especially G3B) than G1/2 FL 23,24 . While not specifically assessed in G3B FL, CD23, a marker of follicular dendritic cells, was more commonly negative in G3 compared with G1/2 FL 25–27 . In contrast, the expression of BCL6 and CD21 does not appear to vary according to grade 5,22,27 …”

Angiogenesis in Lymph Nodes Is a Critical Regulator of Immune Response and Lymphoma Growth

“…CXCR5-controlled access to FDCs conferred survival and proliferation stimuli to CLL B cells in the murine Eμ- Tcl1 model, which mimics some aspects of indolent tumor growth ( 253 ). Similar to reactive LN follicles, neoplastic follicles in FL preserve the organized FDC network structure at least in early stages of the disease progression ( 254 ). FL-FDC cross-talk induces a pro-angiogenic expression pattern in FL cells, including secretion of VEGF-A and VEGF-C ( 255 ).…”