Polymorphisms in the BLyS Gene Are Associated with an Increased Risk of Developing B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Background: Elevated serum BLyS levels have been found in patients with both malignant and autoimmune diseases when compared to those of healthy donors, suggesting that BLyS may play a pathogenic role. While it is clear that BLyS expression is required for normal B cell development and homeostasis, the mechanistic details underlying control of BLyS expression remain to be defined. In previous work we found that a single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the BLyS promoter (−871C→T) resulted in increased BLyS transcription suggesting that genetic variation in the BLyS gene may influence its expression. Because elevated BLyS levels have been detected in patients with NHL we wanted to determine if additional SNPs in the BLyS gene were associated with high serum BLyS levels and risk of developing of NHL.

Methods: We genotyped 9 tagSNPs within the BLyS gene in a clinic-based study of 441 incident Caucasian NHL cases and 475 frequency matched Caucasian controls seen at the Mayo Clinic from 2002–2005. We evaluated the association of individual SNPs as well as haplotypes from the BLyS gene with risk of NHL. We also jointly tested the main effects for all independent (r²<0.25) SNPs using a multivariate logistic regression (MLR) model. As a secondary analysis, for those SNPs showing significant results (< 5% significance), we evaluated associations between those who had all high risk alleles at the SNPs of interest compared to those who had all low risk alleles at the SNPs of interest. Additionally, we evaluated serum BLyS levels by ELISA in these same subjects. Serum BLyS levels were detemined by ELISA.

Results: In the individual single SNP logistic regression analysis, 3 of the 9 tagSNPs were significant at p<0.05. Haplotype and MLR results were nonsignificant. However, when we categorized participants into low and high risk groups based on risk alleles at the three statistically significant SNPs, we found the high risk variant had an odds ratio (OR) of 2.086 (p=0.0001) for risk of B-cell NHL. When the analysis was restricted by histologic subtype we found that diffuse large B-cell lymphoma or follilcular lymphoma grade 3 had an OR of 3.163 (p=0.01), follicular lymphoma grade I/II had an OR= 2.547 (p=0.046), and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) had an OR=1.238 (p=0.13). Because there was not a significant correlation of the high risk variant with CLL, we performed an additional analysis in which we included all B cell NHL cases excluding CLL and the OR was 2.799 (p=0.0001). We next wanted to determine if serum BLyS levels correlated with either the high or low risk variant. The mean serum BLyS level in those individuals (untreated cases and controls) who carried the low risk variant at all three SNPs was significantly lower (p=0.0061) at 1.3 ng/ml (n=25, range: undetectable-4.4 ng/ml) compared to 4.3 ng/ml in those with the high risk variant (n=74, range: undetectable- 66.8 ng/ml).

Conclusions: In summary, we have found that genetic variation in the BLyS gene is significantly associated with an increased risk of developing B-cell NHL, particularly follicular and large B-cell lymphoma. Further, we found that genetic variation is also associated with an increase in serum BLyS levels.Taken together, our data further highlight the role of the BLyS gene in B cell malignancies and characterization of the precise genetic and environmental mechanisms that regulate BLyS may have significant clinical impact.