Comparison of the mRNA expression profile of B-cell receptor components in normal CD5-high B-lymphocytes and chronic lymphocytic leukemia: a key role of ZAP70.

The B-cell receptor (BCR) signaling pathway is of great importance for B-cell survival and proliferation. The BCR expressed on malignant B-CLL cells contributes to the disease pathogenesis, and its signaling pathway is currently the target of several therapeutic strategies. Although various BCR alterations have been described in B-CLL at the protein level, the mRNA expression levels of tyrosine kinases in B-CLL compared to that in normal CD5-high and CD5-low B-lymphocytes remain unknown. In the current study, we measured the mRNA expression levels of CD79A, CD79B, LYN, SYK, SHP1, and ZAP70 in purified populations of CD5-high B-CLL cells, CD5-low B-cells from the peripheral blood of healthy donors, and CD5-high B-cells from human tonsils. Here, we report a clear separation in the B-CLL dataset between the ZAP70-high and ZAP70-low subgroups. Each subgroup has a unique expression profile of BCR signaling components that might reflect the functional status of the BCR signaling pathway. Moreover, the ZAP70-low subgroup does not resemble either CD5-high B-lymphocytes from the tonsils or CD5-low lymphocytes from PBMC (P < 0.05). We also show that ZAP70 is the only gene that is differentially expressed in CD5-high and CD5-low normal B-lymphocytes, confirming the key role of Zap-70 tyrosine kinase in BCR signaling alterations in B-CLL.