Mosaic chromosomal alterations in peripheral blood leukocytes of children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Weiyin ZhouAnja PfausMartin D OgwangWen LuoPatrick KerchanSteven J ReynoldsConstance N TengePamela A WereRobert T KuremuWalter N WekesaNestory MasaluEsther KawiraTobias KinyeraIsaac OtimIsmail D LegasonHadijah NabalendeLeona W AyersKishor BhatiaJames J GoedertMateus H GouveiaNathan ColeBelynda D HicksKristine JonesMichael HummelMatthias SchlesnerGeorge ChagalukaNora MutalimaEric BorgsteinGeorge N LiombaSteve KamizaNyengo MkandawireCollins MitamboElizabeth M MolyneuxRobert NewtonSelina GlaserHelene KretzmerMichelle ManningAmy HutchinsonAnn W HsingYao TetteyAndrew A AdjeiStephen J ChanockReiner SiebertMeredith YeagerLudmila Prokunina-OlssonMitchell J MachielaSam M MbulaiteyePublished in: Nature communications (2023)
In high-income countries, mosaic chromosomal alterations in peripheral blood leukocytes are associated with an elevated risk of adverse health outcomes, including hematologic malignancies. We investigate mosaic chromosomal alterations in sub-Saharan Africa among 931 children with Burkitt lymphoma, an aggressive lymphoma commonly characterized by immunoglobulin-MYC chromosomal rearrangements, 3822 Burkitt lymphoma-free children, and 674 cancer-free men from Ghana. We find autosomal and X chromosome mosaic chromosomal alterations in 3.4% and 1.7% of Burkitt lymphoma-free children, and 8.4% and 3.7% of children with Burkitt lymphoma (P-values = 5.7×10 -11 and 3.74×10 -2 , respectively). Autosomal mosaic chromosomal alterations are detected in 14.0% of Ghanaian men and increase with age. Mosaic chromosomal alterations in Burkitt lymphoma cases include gains on chromosomes 1q and 8, the latter spanning MYC, while mosaic chromosomal alterations in Burkitt lymphoma-free children include copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity on chromosomes 10, 14, and 16. Our results highlight mosaic chromosomal alterations in sub-Saharan African populations as a promising area of research.