DNA methylation profiling can classify HIV-associated lymphomas

HIV-positive patients have a 60-fold to 200-fold increased incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphomas, including Burkitt lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and primary central nervous system lymphoma. HIV-associated lymphomas frequently have features such as extranodal involvement, decreased responses to standard chemotherapy, and high relapse rates, which indicate a poor prognosis. General pathological features do not clearly differentiate HIV-associated lymphomas from non-HIV lymphomas.To investigate the features of HIV-associated lymphomas, we performed genome-wide DNA methylation profiling of HIV and non-HIV lymphomas using Illumina GoldenGate Methylation Cancer Panel I and Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip microarrays. DNA methylation profiles in HIV-associated and non-HIV lymphomas were characterized using unsupervised hierarchical clustering analyses.The analyses of promoter regions revealed unique DNA methylation profiles in HIV-associated lymphomas, suggesting profile differences compared with non-HIV lymphomas, which implies specific gene regulation in HIV-associated lymphoma involving DNA methylation. Based on HumanMethylation450 BeadChip data, 2541 target sites were selected as differing significantly in comparisons between HIV-associated and non-HIV-associated lymphomas using Wilcoxon's rank-sum test (P <0.05) and Δβ values more than 0.30. Recurrent cases of HIV-associated lymphoma had different profiles compared with nonrecurrent HIV lymphomas.DNA methylation profiling indicated that 2541 target sites differed significantly in HIV-associated lymphoma, which may partly explain the poor prognosis. Our data indicate that the methylation profiles of target genes have potential in elucidating HIV-associated lymphomagenesis and can serve as new prognostic markers.