Single-centre Study of the Expression of Heat Shock Proteins in the Lymphocytes From the Tonsils of Patients With Various Diseases Requiring Tonsillectomy

It has recently been shown that various HSPs are strongly expressed in B lymphomas. Indeed, HSP90 stabilizes the protein Bcl-6 in diffuse large-cell B lymphomas. Pharmacological inhibition of HSP90 in vitro induced apoptosis in lymphoma cells (Cerchietti et al. Nat. Medicine, 2009, 1369-1376). In addition, HSP110 is strongly expressed in non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and targeting this HSP at the cell surface using specific antibodies could constitute a future therapy (Zappasodi et al. Blood, 2011, 4421-4430). Despite the importance of these proteins in the development of lymphomas, their expression and their role in the activation of normal B lymphocytes and the normal development of germinal centres is not known.

The expression of Heat shock proteins should vary among the different B lymphocyte populations present in the tonsils (naïve B cells, memory B cells, germinal centre B cells).

The aim of this study is to establish an expression profile for heat shock proteins in populations of B lymphocytes in human tonsils