miR-28 regulates the germinal center reaction and blocks tumor growth in preclinical models of non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma comprises a variety of neoplasms, many of which arise from germinal center (GC)-experienced B cells. microRNA-28 (miR-28) is a GC-specific miRNA whose expression is lost in numerous mature B-cell neoplasms. Here we show that miR-28 regulates the GC reaction in primary B cells by impairing class switch recombination and memory B and plasma cell differentiation. Deep quantitative proteomics combined with transcriptome analysis identified miR-28 targets involved in cell-cycle and B-cell receptor signaling. Accordingly, we found that miR-28 expression diminished proliferation in primary and lymphoma cells in vitro. Importantly, miR-28 reexpression in human Burkitt (BL) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) xenografts blocked tumor growth, both when delivered in viral vectors or as synthetic, clinically amenable, molecules. Further, the antitumoral effect of miR-28 is conserved in a primary murine in vivo model of BL. Thus, miR-28 replacement is uncovered as a novel therapeutic strategy for DLBCL and BL treatment.This work was supported by a Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad's research training program (Formacion de Personal Investigador [FPI]) fellowship (N.B.-I.); the Ramon y Cajal program (RYC-2009-04503) funded by the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte and the European Research Council Proof of Concept program (HEAL-BY-MIRNA 713728) (V.G.d.Y.); the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovaculares (CNIC) (A.F.A.-P., S.M.M., A.R.R.); the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (SAF2010-21394, SAF2013-42767-R), the European Research Council Starting Grant program (BCLYM-207844), and Proof of Concept program (HEAL-BY-MIRNA 713728) (A.R.R.); the People Programme-Marie Curie Actions (FP7-PIIF-2012-328177), Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO; SAF2013-45787-R), and Gobierno de Navarra (GN-106/2014) (S.R.); and the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (BIO2012-37926 and BIO2015-67580-P), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria [FIS] grants PRB2 [IPT13/0001, Proteo-Red], the Fundacion La Marato TV3, and Redes tematicas de investigacion cooperativa en salud [RETICS] [RD12/0042/00056, RIC]) (J.V.). This work has been cofunded by Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) funds. The CNIC is supported by the and the Pro CNIC Foundation and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (MINECO award SEV-2015-0505).S