PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Vrzalikova, Katerina
AU  - Woodman, Ciaran Bernard John
AU  - Murray, Paul Gerard
TI  - BLIMP1α, the master regulator of plasma cell differentiation is a tumor supressor gene in B cell lymphomas
DP  - 2012 Mar 1
TA  - Biomedical papers
PG  - 1--6
VI  - 156
IP  - 1
AID - 10.5507/bp.2012.003
IS  - 12138118
AB  - Aims: The aim of this review was to summarize recent knowledge of the structure and function of a transcriptional repressor, B lymphocyte induced maturation protein 1 (BLIMP1) and its participation in the pathogenesis of B lymphomas.
Methods and results: This review summarizes the structure and function of BLIMP1, its major target genes and its role as a tumour suppressor in B cell lymphomas. We review our recent data implicating the loss of BLIMP1α as an important step in the pathogenesis of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) associated B cell lymphomas.
Conclusions: BLIMP1 is a transcriptional repressor essential for the differentiation of germinal centre (GC) B cells to plasma cells. The loss of BLIMP1 in GC B cells could contribute to the pathogenesis of EBV-associated lymphomas by preventing plasma cell differentiation and viral replication.