title: Recent results on the biology of Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg cells. I. Biopsy material.
abstract: The most recent sophisticated investigations have provided new and revealing, but also contradictory and controversial information on the biological nature and the cellular origin of Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg cells (H-RS). Immunophenotypic analyses have shown variable phenotypic antigen expression; but, on balance the data suggest a lymphoid cell expressing T- and/or B-cell-associated markers and certain activation antigens while lacking immunological features of monocytes-macrophages or other lineages. Molecular genetic studies have demonstrated heterogenous findings with respect to rearrangements of T-cell receptor and immunoglobulin genes. Only a small percentage of the cases has rearrangements; this might be due to the threshold of sensitivity of the method combined with the scarcity of the malignant cells. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genomes are clonally integrated in the H-RS cells of about half the cases. The significance of these findings--whether EBV is a causative agent or an epiphenomenon--remains to be elucidated. H-RS cells express mRNA and proteins of various cytokines and cytokine receptors implying a predominant role for cytokines in the pathophysiology of HD. The mononuclear and polynuclear H-RS cells are capable of DNA synthesis and nuclear division; the lack of cellular division leads to multinuclearity through the process of endomitosis. Mutations and expression of only a limited number of oncogenes have been tested thus far. Whether the bcl-2 oncogene is involved in HD remains a matter of debate. Aneuploidy and non-random chromosomal abnormalities are the results of cytogenetic analyses of H-RS cells. However, no chromosomal marker specific for HD has yet been found. Thus, while studies of EBV involvement, growth factor production, oncogene expression and chromosomal abnormalities contributed a fair amount of new data on the nature of H-RS cells, only immunophenotyping and genotyping provided some indication of the cellular derivation: an activated lymphoid cell that possibly expresses oncogenes, that probably is infected with EBV, that most likely produces cytokines, that certainly has multiple karyotypic abnormalities.
authors.affiliation: German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Drexler
mesh_terms: D000954:Antigens, Surface / Q000032:analysis; D015415:Biomarkers; D001706:Biopsy; D002455:Cell Division; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D016207:Cytokines / Q000502:physiology; D015321:Gene Rearrangement; D005838:Genotype; D004854:Herpesvirus 4, Human / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D016130:Immunophenotyping; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology*; D009857:Oncogenes; D016539:Reed-Sternberg Cells / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology*; D014412:Tumor Virus Infections / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D000954:Antigens, Surface; D015415:Biomarkers; D016207:Cytokines