Identification and confirmation via in situ hybridization of Merkel cell polyomavirus in rare cases of posttransplant cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.

Viral infection is an oncogenic factor in many hematolymphoid malignancies. We sought to determine the diagnostic yield of aligning off-target reads incidentally obtained during targeted hematolymphoid next-generation sequencing to a large database of viral genomes to screen for viral sequences within tumor specimens. Alignment of off-target reads to viral genomes was performed using magicBLAST. Localization of Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) RNA was confirmed by RNAScope in situ hybridization. Integration analysis was performed using Virus-Clip. Four cases of post-cardiac-transplant folliculotropic mycosis fungoides (fMF) and one case of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) were positive in off-target reads for MCPyV DNA. Two of the four cases of posttransplant fMF and the case of PTCL showed localization of MCPyV RNA to malignant lymphocytes, whereas the remaining two cases of posttransplant fMF showed MCPyV RNA in keratinocytes. Our findings raise the question of whether MCPyV may play a role in rare cases of T-lymphoproliferative disorders, particularly in the skin and in the heavily immunosuppressed posttransplant setting. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Citation

Lauren Lawrence, Aihui Wang, Gregory Charville, Chih Long Liu, Andrea Garofalo, Ash Alizadeh, Diwash Jangam, Benjamin A Pinsky, Malaya Sahoo, Dita Gratzinger, Michael Khodadoust, Youn Kim, Roberto Novoa, Henning Stehr. Identification and confirmation via in situ hybridization of Merkel cell polyomavirus in rare cases of posttransplant cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Journal of cutaneous pathology. 2023 Sep;50(9):835-844

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PMID: 37394808

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