Relationship Between Expression of Cellular Genes and Epstein-Barr Virus in Hodgkin’s Disease

Abstract

The diagnosis of Hodgkin’s disease (HD) is based on the presence of typical Reed-Sternberg (RS) cells in an appropriate cellular environment of “reactive” cells. The origin of the neoplastic cells in HD is still controversial (Hsu et al., 1985; Cabanillas et al., 1988; Hsu et al., 1992; Drexler, 1992). Recent data favour the hypothesis that the RS cells and their mononuclear variants (collectively called H-RS cells) originate from lymphoid cells, although conflicting data have been published about the exact lineage (Cibull et al., 1989; Schmid et al., 1991; Drexler, 1992; Herbst et al., 1993; Koduru et al., 1993). Expression of B or T-cell specific markers on H-RS cells has been described (Oka et al., 1988; Bjarni et al., 1989; Cibull et al., 1989; Schmid et al., 1991). The number of H-RS cells expressing lymphoid differentiation markers may vary considerably among the different histological types. In HD, nodular lymphocyte predominant type the neoplastic cells express B-cell markers (Coles et al., 1988; Kadin et al., 1988), whereas in other subtypes B and/or T-cell markers can be found on H-RS cells in a variable proportion of cases (Oka et al., 1988; Kadin et al., 1988; Bjarni et al., 1989; Cibull et al., 1989).