CELL-KINETICS, MORPHOLOGY, AND MOLECULAR IGV(H) GENE REARRANGEMENTS IN HODGKINS-DISEASE

The present study dealt with the question of whether any cellular kine tic patterns correlate with clonal rearrangement of the IgV(H) gene as revealed by polymerase chain reaction on DNA extracted from lymph nod es with classical Hodgkin's disease (HD) and/or from single CD30(+) ce lls (Hodgkin [H] and Reed-Sternberg [RS] cells). In 15/4 cases with H- RS cells of B or Null phenotype, signs of such monoclonality could be detected (group I) but not in the others (group Il). CD30(+)/H-RS cell s in group I differed slightly but significantly from those in group I I in that they a) exhibited a larger fraction of cells attaining the a naphase/telophase stage of mitosis, and b) produced relatively more mo nonucleated cells CH) at the expense of multinucleated (RS) cells. In addition, reactive lymphoid cell (CD30(-)) infiltrates were considerab ly less dense in group I that in group II. These findings suggest that the cytokinesis of H-RS cells in group I was moderately more efficien t than in group II. However, signs of monoclonality were not associate d with the normalization of the mitotic process, which also proved to be disturbed in group I.