Immunologic markers of Burkitt's lymphoma cells

Lymphocyte markers were studied on fresh cells from 30 patients with Burkitt (L3) leukaemia and cell lines derived from endemic and non-endemic Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) patients. We observed day-to-day variations of lymphocyte marker expression by cultured lines and, occasionally, differences between fresh and cultured cells. In L3 leukaemia, a wide range of phenotypes, including pre-B cell and mature monoclonal IgM + IgD positive B-cell phenotypes, was observed. Most often, the cells expressed high-density monoclonal surface IgM without IgD and lacked IgG Fc, complement and Epstein-Barr virus receptors. Blast cells from rare patients featured monoclonal IgG or IgA instead of IgM. Cases with light chains of the lambda type were more frequent than those with kappa chains. Monoclonal immunoglobulins were found in serum or urine from eight of 20 patients studied. These results are compared with data from the literature on endemic and non-endemic BL and discussed with respect to the maturation stage reached by the cells. In the study of both fresh and cultured cells, we demonstrated a correlation between variant chromosomal translocations and light-chain types, the cells from patients with a t(2;8) translocation expressing kappa and those with a t(8;22) expressing lambda chains, with one exception Vimentin expression was absent or weak in most BLs studied (lines or fresh cells) and in cells from patients with Langer-Giedion syndrome, in contrast to most other lymphomas and leukaemias and normal lymphoblastoid cell lines.