Relationship of Expression Between SOX11 and PAX5 in Pathological Tissue Specimens of Patients with Mantle Cell Lymphoma and Its Clinical Significance

  Objective  Investigate the expression of SRY-related HMG box 11 (SOX11) and paired box domain 5 (PAX5) in patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and analyze the relationship between them and their clinical significance.

  Methods  Seventy-six formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples of patients who were diagnosed with MCL from January 2012 to August 2017 were collected．Fifty-six FFPE samples from patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), thirty-eight FFPE samples from patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) and nine FFPE samples from patients with Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) were used as control groups. Real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry were used to detect the mRNA and protein expressions of SOX11 and PAX5. The association between expressions of SOX11 and PAX5 in patients with MCL was analyzed. On the basis of the median H score of SOX11 and PAX5 protein expressions in patients with MCL, they were divided into high and low expression group, and the relationship between the different groups and patients’ clinical characteristics and prognosis were analyzed.

  Results  The different mRNA expression levels of SOX11 and PAX5 in different lymphoma tissues were statistically significant (P<0.01). The mRNA expression levels of SOX11 and PAX5 in MCL group were higher than those of the control groups, and the differences of those between MCL and DLBCL or FL were statistically significant (P<0.01). However, the differences of those between MCL and BL were not significant (P>0.05). The expression level of SOX11 protein was also higher than those of the control groups (P<0.000 1). However, there was no significant difference in PAX5 protein expression level between the MCL group and the control group, nor the expression levels of SOX11 and PAX5 genes and proteins among the control groups (P>0.05). By analyzing the samples from patients with MCL, we observed a positive relevance between SOX11 and PAX5 both in mRNA expression level (r_s=0.714, P<0.000 1) and protein expression level (G=0.407, P=0.01). There was no difference in clinical characteristics and overall survival between the high and low expression group.

  Conclusion  In MCL, there was a positive relevance between the expressions of SOX11 and PAX5. The expression of SOX11 or PAX5 alone has no significant effect on the prognostic stratification of MCL patients.