Abstract

Feline alimentary lymphoma encompasses a diverse group of neoplastic subtypes, each presumably arising from distinct cell populations and exhibiting significant variability in biological behaviour and prognosis. Whilst next-generation sequencing technologies have become a more common aid in the diagnosis, prognostication and treatment of lymphoma in humans, these techniques have been sparsely applied to investigate feline alimentary lymphoma. Specifically, current research in this field is mostly focused on differentiating indolent intestinal lymphomas from inflammatory enteropathies. The aim of the study was to apply transcriptomic analysis to identify differentially expressed genes that may correlate with the aggressiveness of various subtypes of feline alimentary lymphoma. Differential gene analysis was applied to RNA sequencing data from 19 cases of feline alimentary lymphoma split into five phenotypes (small T cell, B cell, CD56+ B cell, Large Granular T cell and Large Granular NK cell lymphomas) according to histomorphology and immunohistochemistry. The analysis identified overexpression of several genes involved in extracellular matrix remodelling, transcription factor expression and cellular division, signalling and metabolism in aggressive lymphoma types (ADAMTS14, ADAMTSl2, FOXI3, ELAVL2, CCR1, GCGR, NMUR1, MARC1, SLC29A4, CENPF, IGF2BP3); and overexpression of several tumour suppressor genes in the indolent lymphoma type (RAB17, SYNPO2, GRM4). The differential expression correlated with biologic behaviours. Future investigation into expression of these genes or gene products using molecular, immunohistochemical or in-situ hybridisation techniques could yield significant advancements in the prognostication of feline alimentary lymphoma as well as pave the way for the development of targeted immunotherapeutic strategies to aid in the treatment of specific feline alimentary lymphoma subtypes.