Transgenic N-myc mouse model for indolent B cell lymphoma: tumor characterization and analysis of genetic alterations in spontaneous and retrovirally accelerated tumors

Little is known about stepwise deregulation of specific genes leading to lymphoid malignancy. Aberrant myc gene expression in transgenic mice is correlated with B cell lymphomagenesis. We generated a unique transgenic mouse model in which deregulated murine E mu-N-myc transgene expression leads to development of indolent B cell lymphoma. Tumor cells were monoclonal, morphologically mature and surface immunoglobulin expressing B cells. Tumors arose in a disease course and exhibited a cytoarchitectural appearance reminiscent of human follicular lymphoma. Yet tumor cells were staged as preB since they failed to rearrange the immunoglobulin light chain genes. Retroviral insertion mutagenesis analyses of adult transgenic mice infected as newborns with murine leukemia virus revealed decreased disease latency, increased lymphoma incidence and a histologically more mature tumor type. Proviral insertion sites were not equivalent when accelerated E mu-N-myc indolent lymphomas were compared to accelerated c-myc preB cell lymphomas. The bcl-2 gene was not disrupted in either spontaneous or provirally accelerated E mu-N-myc lymphomas. These findings suggest that tumor progression in N-myc-associated indolent B cell lymphoma can proceed along diverse pathways involving distinctly different combinations of deregulated and/or intact genes than those pathways described in highly aggressive forms of myc-related murine preB cell disease.