RESEARCH ARTICLE Conserved Molecular Underpinnings and Characterization of a Role for Caveolin-1 in the Tumor Microenvironment of Mature T-

Neoplasms of extra-thymic T-cell origin represent a rare and difficult population character-ized by poor clinical outcome, aggressive presentation, and poorly defined molecular char-acteristics. Much work has been done to gain greater insights into distinguishing features among malignant subtypes, but there also exists a need to identify unifying characteristics to assist in rapid diagnosis and subsequent potential treatment. Herein, we investigated gene expression data of five different mature T-cell lymphoma subtypes (n = 187) and found 21 genes to be up- and down-regulated across all malignancies in comparison to healthy CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell controls (n = 52). From these results, we sought to character-ize a role for caveolin-1 (CAV1), a gene with previous description in the progression of both solid and hematological tumors. Caveolin-1 was upregulated, albeit with a heterogeneous nature, across all mature T-cell lymphoma subtypes, a finding confirmed using immunohis-tochemical staining on an independent sampling of mature T-cell lymphoma biopsies (n = 65 cases). Further, stratifying malignant samples in accordance with high and low CAV1 expression revealed that higher expression of CAV1 in mature T-cell lymphomas is analo-gous with an enhanced inflammatory and invasive gene expression profile. Taken together, these results demonstrate a role for CAV1 in the tumor microenvironment of mature T-cell malignancies and point toward potential prognostic implications