Abstract

Phospholipase C (PLC) plays a role in ligand-mediated signal transduction for cellular activity such as proliferation and differentiation. A recent observation that PLC- gamma1 is highly expressed in some kinds of human cancer tissue supports the view that PLC-gamma1 may be involved in proliferation and carcinogenesis. PLC-gamma2 is known to be involved in B cell differentiation and maturation. However, there have been few studies about the expressions of PLC-gamma1 and gamma2 in human lymphoid malignancy. In the present study, we examined the contents of PLC-gamma1 and gamma2 in 10 cases of B cell, 10 cases of T cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and 5 cases of Hodgkin's lymphoma to find out whether these enzymes play any role in the carcinogenesis by immunohistochemistry and immunoprecipitation. Immunoprecipitation analysis revealed that in contrast to increased expression of PLC-gamma2 only in B cell lymphoma, a considerably higher level of PLC-gamma1 was detected in both B and T cell lymphoma. Immunohistochemical finding confirmed this observation. PLC-gamma1 and PLC-gamma2 were expressed in the cytoplasm of most tumor cells. PLC-gamma2 was also expressed in mature B cells, while PLC-gamma1 was not expressed in reactive non-tumor cells. These results suggest that PLC-gamma1 mediated signal transduction implicates a significant role in the carcinogenesis of all types of lymphoid tissue, and PLC-gamma2 may play a role in the carcinogenesis of B cell lymphoma as well as B cell differentiation.

• Keywords: PLC-gamma1;PLC-gamma2;Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma;Hodgkin's lymphoma